A Rose Upon a Thorn
by Anath Tsurugi
Summary: Seven years ago, Alexsandr Kallus vanished without a trace. When he returns as something distinctly less human, the half-Fey prince, Garazeb Orrelios, will have to discover exactly what it is that's become of his long lost lover. Failure may well mean the end of both the human and the faerie realms.
1. First Night

(A/N) Okay, okay fiiiiine. Since I seem to do nothing but talk y'all's ears off about this particular WIP lately, I'll go ahead and start posting it. Some of ye may recall that little AU snippet I teased about a year ago. Well, this is what's spun out from it. I have a particular fascination with the Ballad of Tam Lin, so it's one I return to quite a lot, but somewhere along the way, this piece made the leap from a straight retelling into 'loosely inspired by Tam Lin' territory. Interesting little tidbit, in this opening scene you will meet two of my OCs, Zeb's parents. Mostly I'm amused because this is the first time I'm introducing them to you...and they're human. Heheh. Well, whatever happens, I very much hope you enjoy this little side quest of mine.

**A Rose Upon A Thorn**

_Chapter 1: First Night_

_Once upon a time, which is all times and no times, but not the very best of times, the world was divided in two. The realm of the daytime, of the living sun and the seen aspects of reality, of that which is known, belonged to the humans. And the realm of night, of thought and power and shadow, of the unseen and unknown deep within the mist, that belonged to the Others _– _the Fey._

_For as long as the two peoples had been aware, they had lived apart from one another, their worlds kept divided one from the other by a nebulous boundary of fear, magic, hatred, and obsession. Only briefly would either human or faerie dare to traverse the barrier between their own world and the other. Briefly, but with lasting effects, as almost no being can resist the temptation to lie with something beautiful. So, within both worlds, there were a fair few children born who bore the blood of both. And though hate and power continued to keep the two realms separate, there were those who searched for ways to end that separation._

_None came closer to that goal than one young scholar, an intelligent and profoundly wise lorekeeper of the royal library. After being saved by a young Fey noble in his youth, the human sought a way to end the division between the two peoples. In his studies of the Divide and of the two folk, the young scholar formed a fast friendship with the noble who had once saved his life. This noble was, in fact, prince of the Fey, and would one day ascend as their high king. Together the pair sought a method of bringing their two kinds together and, if later stories were to be believed, became a great deal more than mere companions in the process._

_Magic and power may be overcome with enough study, but fear, hate, and ignorance are stronger opponents still. Neither realm was accepting of the notion of dwelling side by side with the other and, ultimately, the young scholar gave his life in his efforts to bring his message of tolerance to the realms, torn to pieces by the very humans he had hoped to enlighten._

_The execution of his dearest companion erased what shaky care and compassion the faerie prince had had for humans. When he ascended as High King of the Fey, he led his people into open war against them. That war was long and brutal, only ending in truce when the king's people grew weary of tearing their world to shreds for the sake of destroying their enemies._

_The realms returned to the way things had been, staying out of each other's affairs, the humans fearing to interfere in Fey matters and the Fey too disgusted with the humans to mingle among them, and those who were not turned from each other by the long centuries of conflict were forbidden further contact when the faerie king forbade the mingling of Fey and human blood. Many human generations passed in this way, until the Fey had attained a more mythic status among the humans, their existence evidenced only by their half-blood descendants who still walked the world of man. Those bold enough to cross the Divide were now few and far between, the humans fearful of the nightmare stories of what lay beyond the Divide and those few Fey who were sometimes still curious much too afraid of rousing the anger of their king by risking the journey._

_Even so, gazes will wander and hearts will stray, and when the eye of a shield maiden of the Fey king's court looked too deeply upon the human realm, falling into the kind, fearless eyes of a human prince, there was little that could be done to crush the love that blossomed between them._

_The shield maiden attempted to maintain her place in the king's court, thinking perhaps to once again attempt to heal the wound that divided the two realms. But when the young warrior could no longer keep secret the fruit of her union with her prince, when the king discovered the child her lover had gotten on her, he flew into a rage, crying for the heads of both the maiden and her infant son._

XxX

Lirakal could hear the pounding of her own heartbeat in her ears as she ran through the night. Exhaustion and fear were quickly creeping in on her. If she were at full strength, if she weren't still recovering from giving birth, there was no way Thrawn's guards would even be able to keep pace with her. But she _wasn't_ at full strength and she _was_ still recovering from bearing the little babe she held clutched against her breast, so she could do little more than run. Her mother's distraction had bought her time, but not much.

They were gaining.

_Why do you run, Lirakal?_ the king's voice gnawed at the back of her mind, separate from the physical struggle she waged to escape from him. _You cannot get away._

The young faerie snarled in rage as she drew her sword, whirling to face her pursuers. The first had been so close at her heels he was impaled upon the naked blade, shrieking in shock and pain as she quickly cast him aside to die in a slick puddle of his own blood.

She fought off two more of the royal guards, quickly relieving them of their heads before more could arrive. With three fewer pursuers than before, she continued her flight through the tangled bramble of thorns and undergrowth that filled the Divide. All the while, her son's terrified sobs filled her ears.

_I won't let him have you, little one. I will __**die**_ _first. Thrawn will have to pry you from my cold, dead hands before I give you up._

Up ahead, she could see light. The pale and silvery moonlight of the mortal realm, not the harsh, stark light of her own world. If she could just _get there_. There she'd be able to protect her boy from her king's power. Through the curtains of thorns, she could just see Zenarab on the other side, waiting for her. Just as he'd promised.

_I'm coming, my love. I'm coming._

_This truly is pointless, Lira. Your human cannot save you,_ the king's powerful voice lanced into her brain once again. Closer. He was getting closer. _By even placing his seed in your body, he has damned both you __**and**_ _the child. If you surrender now, I promise your deaths will be quick and painless._

"_NEVER!_" she screamed for all the realms to hear, her child in one hand and her sword in the other. "I will _never_ surrender to you!"

_You will have little choice in the matter, Lady Orrelios. Shouldn't you think of your son now? Do you truly wish for him to suffer all of the __**horror**_ _my power is capable of calling down upon him?_

"No," she panted out as she ran, his words like tiny hooks in her thoughts now. "But that won't happen, because we're getting out of here."

"_Lira!_" She could see Zen's lips forming her name, could hear him shouting. They were close. They were _so close._

"No_, _dear lady," Thrawn's cold voice hissed directly in her ear. "I'm afraid you are _not_."

_Oh, Gods._

The moment Lirakal actually heard the faerie king's voice aloud, she froze. Mere steps away from the border, she found she couldn't stir even a single foot to escape.

"_Lira! NO!_"

She could still see Zen, could still hear him, but when she saw him attempt to enter the Divide, he seemed to come up against an invisible barrier, unable even to touch the thorns that comprised the borders of the two realms. And the next moment, all she could see was Thrawn.

The king's red eyes glowed with the promise of pain as he glared at her. It was the only thing about him that spoke of the deep-seated _rage_ she knew he harbored in his soul. Everything else about the high king was calm, cold and cruel as ice, and just as unforgiving. That chilly countenance filled her vision now, a small sneer curling his lips as the last of his guards surrounded her.

But she wasn't afraid of them.

No.

It was Thrawn himself she feared. And she had little doubt he would give her cause to in her final moments. For several minutes, the monarch just circled her, letting her feel how powerless she now was.

"Such an unfortunate thing," he said in a dangerously soft voice as he moved in close to her once again, gently lifting her wailing son from her grasp. Outwardly she was powerless even to blink of her own volition, but inside...inside she was screaming.

_No! Please! Not him! I'll do anything, most high majesty! Anything at all! Just please don't harm my child!_

"He really is a fine-looking lad. Worthy of the Orrelios name and more besides. It truly is an unfortunate thing his existence is forbidden," the king said, rocking the newborn in one arm while he called a small but potent tangle of dark energy to his other hand.

_NO! ZEB! MY GARAZEB! MY CHILD! NOT __**MY CHILD!**_

Strangely, the baby boy calmed as he looked on his death, the flickers of dark and bright that danced over the shifting surface of the king's spell lighting up his tear-stained face. Thrawn actually held the spell away when Zeb reached out to touch it.

"I may grant the child a quick death, at least, but yours must be suitably lingering, Lady Orrelios. You should not have disobeyed. My laws are in place to keep our people safe, and those who would break them must be made to know the _sting_ of my displeasure. Say goodbye to your son if you wish," he told her as he unbound her mouth. "I have at least that much mercy."

Lirakal remained silent as she looked on the baby in her king's arms. What purpose did goodbye serve when her little one had barely had his first hello? The only thing she could think to offer up in that moment that would come anywhere _close_ to meaning something was, "Garazeb...my little Zeb...I'm so sorry."

She had little doubt the king would've spoken then, but he didn't get the chance to. Because in that moment, Zenarab was there, slashing a dagger of cold iron across Thrawn's face. As he cried out in pain he dropped Zeb, his focus shattered. By the time Zen had caught their boy, Lirakal was in motion again, pushing her family back through the Divide and into the human realm.

Winding up on their knees in the dirt beyond the barrier, Lira was quickly scrambling to take little Zeb from his father, covering his face with kisses as she checked him for injuries.

"Is he all right? Is he all right?!" she demanded over and over again while Zen checked _her_ over for injuries.

"He'll be fine. Thrawn didn't touch him. What about you? Will _you _be all right?" he pressed her.

"Perhaps in body," Thrawn's voice was suddenly reaching out to them across the Divide. When they looked back, it was to see the Fey king standing just at the boundary of the two realms. His eyes glowed even more fiercely as blue-black blood trickled down his face, shimmering faintly in the moonlight. "But what of your spirit, Lira? You cannot hope to thrive in this world. You will have hardly a tenth of your power. You would accept being so diminished as that?"

"That doesn't matter," she said, glaring up at her former ruler. "Here I have my family. I am more diminished without love than I could ever be without my power."

"And the humans themselves?" he asked her with a raised eyebrow. "You do not know them as I do, young one. They will never accept you."

"We can already see they have."

"_One of them_ has," Thrawn pointed out. "And that's all it will ever be. One human. The rest are beasts and they will tear the three of you to pieces, as they have done all others who have ever attempted to live a different way."

"That's not true!" Zenarab argued. "Not all humans are like that."

"Indeed, child?" Thrawn asked with a dismissive sneer. "If you believe that, you are _quite_ young in this world of yours. You will see. You will see how your fellow men turn from your son in disgust when they learn what he is. They will never accept this _family_ of yours. I suppose, Lira, that having to live in this world you've chosen is punishment enough for your sins. For if this is your decision, then you may never return to the moonlit realm. You will live and die among humans. Your mother will die alone, with no one to mourn the passing of so great a name. Is that _truly_ what you want...Lirakal Orrelios?"

Lira swallowed heavily at the thought of her mother. Thrawn could not raise a hand against Bennali Orrelios, no matter what her daughter had done. That much was true. But the idea of her mother passing unmourned was more promise than simple threat. It would haunt her thoughts all her days, she knew, but...

"My mother's decision was made when she saw that I could never be truly happy in our world after loving Zen. _My_ decision was made when I felt our son quickening in my body. No amount of _displeasure_ from you will change any of it. So go your way in peace, my most High King Thrawn. Have your laws. Here, you have no power. Here, at least, I and my own shall be free," she told him, rising slowly to her feet with Garazeb in her arms. Zen was soon standing beside her, an arm around her shoulders, so that they stood with their son cradled between them, standing unafraid before the king of the faerie realm.

Thrawn merely sighed as he shook his head. "Have your human realm then, Lady Knight. You may never believe it, but I hope you are happy. I hope I am wrong and that you _can_ build a life here, but nothing in my experience gives me cause to truly believe that. And you, little prince," he continued, turning to look at Zenarab, "perhaps you have won today, but think not that you can shed blood such as mine and suffer no consequences. I hope it was worth it."

"_Go,_ Thrawn!" Lira snarled, baring her fangs at him.

"My Lady," the king said, inclining his head toward her in a gesture of respect that was only somewhat mocking. Then he stepped backward into the shadows and mist beyond the thorn-choked barrier, his red eyes the last thing to vanish into the darkness.

_Farewell._

Once they were well and truly alone at the Divide, the young couple quickly sank back to their knees, still clutching their child between them.

"Gods," Lira whispered as she leaned into Zen, "Gods and spirits protect us."

"Li," her love whispered, his normally deep voice thin with shock and lingering terror, "I really thought- I was going to have to watch the two of you die...and not be able to do anything to stop it."

"I thought so, too," she said, turning her head to the side to press a brief but heartfelt kiss to the human's lips. In human terms, her Zen was not a small man, but stood beside her, he was still a little on the shorter side. "I'm amazed you managed it. Did you really break through his barrier with- with nothing but that dagger?"

"Suppose so," he said, glancing down at the blood-spattered iron dagger at his hip. "I know I- shouldn't have been able to. But it worked out better than even _you'd_ thought when you first gave it to me."

"It did," she said with a small laugh. "Sharpen that with his blood still on it and I can guarantee you it will never grow dull. It may even develop some further powers of its own...with blood like _Thrawn's_ imbued in the iron."

"But...Li...it's not as if- he was _entirely_ wrong," Zen reminded her. "I mean...Bail's given his consent for me to marry you, and that carries a lot of weight, but...there will still be others who fear you...who fear our son. This won't be easy."

"No, but we knew that already," she said softly as she called upon the power that remained to her, beginning to shift the forms of both herself and her son. "We knew it wouldn't be easy for any of us."

Lirakal's velvet-fine purple fur shifted first to grey, then to deepest black before sloughing away entirely, leaving her with only human skin. Her large, strong feline limbs shrank down into human form and her killing claws winnowed down to only faint hints within her nail beds. Her long hair remained purple, but shifted to a shade so dark, it could almost be mistaken for a deep red. Her fangs shriveled within her jaw, shrinking down to the same faint hint of their former sharpness as her claws, leaving her smile with the barest impression of just how dangerous she truly was. Her ears remained pointed, but they shifted a little further down on her head. The last to change were her eyes, the round, luminous orbs shifting to something a little more human within her skull, though a similar faint hint of their former glow remained.

When she looked down at Garazeb, she could see that similar changes had been wrought in her baby, now even tinier than he had been. Tiny green human eyes gazed up at her from a dark face framed by slender, pointed ears. A similar sheen of dark purple-red fuzz covered his little head. The only remnants of their fur were tattoo-like patterns of stripes along their skin in a lighter shade of black than the base color. Not entirely human, but much less outwardly Fey than they had been.

Little Zeb wasn't all that aware of the fact that he looked different now. He simply offered both his parents a large, gummy smile, cooing happily as he held up his hand, now a tiny human thing with four fingers instead of a clawed paw with only three. Lira held her own much smaller hand up to her son's, wiggling the new digit around in curiosity.

"That new finger's going to take some getting used to," she said absently, curling it around Zeb's tiny wrist. "And the legs...and the feet...and the skin...I like the look on _you_, Zen, but I'm not sure it suits me."

Her husband-to-be gave a small, pained laugh at her half-hearted complaints, sensing the real longing within them. At least their son would be able to grow up unaware he had any other form, but this...this would be difficult for Lira. "Are you sure this is really what you want? To live like this...with me?"

Lirakal rolled her eyes as she looked up at him. "It's a bit late for that, my love. Besides, it's as I told Thrawn before. This is where my family is. I have _you_. And _we_ have our son. I have all that I need."

XxX

_In truth, the young prince was a prince in little more than name. He was half-brother to the king of the mortal realm, son of a concubine of the former king. He had been granted dominion over a small province in the much more wild, Fey-enmeshed northern territory of the human realm. As such, his affairs were largely kept separate from those of the wider court, and his own son was kept mostly away from notice. After all, it was no secret that the prince's wife and child were Fay, but it was a subject largely left undiscussed. The new human king was much more accepting of the idea of mixed blood and the breaking of barriers, especially after one of his more beloved brothers had fallen in love with a faerie, but change was still slow to come to a land that had long been ruled by fear and ignorance._

_The young half-faerie child knew nothing of this, though. He was only a child, after all, and he longed for nothing more than to play with other children. Though many of the court's children were wary of his inhuman looks and his more than mortal strength, there was at least one other boy the child made fast friends with _– _the only son of one of the court lords, a bastard child. The lord's son was a lonely boy himself, as his father was a hard and cruel man who was very much against the king's new ideas about the acceptance of Fey blood._

_And so, in spite of the old fears and prejudices arrayed against them, the two lonely boys became friends, playing together any opportunity they could seize. The boy's mother had no objections to their friendship, of course, but she did always offer them a single admonishment._

_Never stray too close to the Divide._

_The call of his Fey blood had always been present in the exiled knight's son, and had been from almost before he could crawl. Though she tried to leave her past behind her, there was still the ever-present danger that the sheer wild in her son would call him back into the faerie realm..._

_...back to the land he was born in, only to die._

XxX

"Zeb, _stop!_"

Garazeb heard his friend's cry, but he didn't heed it. He had his eyes fixed on the ball and he wasn't going to lose it.

The little red ball was bouncing through the forest all on its own. He didn't _think_ he'd thrown it that hard, but it wouldn't be the first time he didn't know his own strength. He wasn't going to let that get the better of him this time. He kept on after the fleeing ball, kept on until it rolled right into the thicket of thorns at the borders of the forest.

He hardly noticed the small call at the back of his mind that was both warning and siren song. This close to the Divide, he should've heeded it, but all he knew in that moment was that he was about to lose Alex's very favorite toy and he wasn't going to let that happen. So, ignoring every warning in his head and heart, he thrust a hand into the thorny brambles.

"_ZEB!_"

It was a really strange feeling, both pain and not. As he watched, the wild thorns dug into his dark skin, the briar seeming to pulse as it drank his blood. Transfixed, he felt his head grow light and sleepy as his gaze was drawn deep into the thorn forest. And somewhere, just at the edges of his sight, he thought he could see a figure within the thorns – a creature with haunting red eyes.

_Come away, O human child._

"But...I'm not-"

"Zeb! _NO!_" Alex's shouting was suddenly in his ears and the other boy was crashing into him, tearing him free of the briar's hold. Even though Alex was smaller than him, he seemed to have no trouble pinning him down as they went crashing to the ground.

For several moments, Zeb just lay on the ground, staring up at the faint gray light shining through the dark green leaves overhead, softly singing along with the voice still winding dangerously through his thoughts.

_Come away, O human child_

_To the waters and the wild_

_With a faerie, hand in hand_

_For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand_

He might've kept on singing...were it not for the feel of Alex's tears on his skin as he clung to him, keeping him pinned to the ground – keeping him from rising and going to the thorns.

"Zeb, don't. _Please_ don't!" the other boy sobbed as if his heart might break. "Don't sing that awful song! If you let them in, they'll take you away. I don't want you to go! Please stay. _Wake up!_"

As his friend's pleas slowly melted the ice that had flooded his veins, Zeb fell quiet, his arms slowly wrapping around the other boy.

"I'm sorry," he whimpered, tears springing to his own eyes.

A tiny sob of relief escaped the smaller boy as he looked up at him. "You're all right. You came back! You...d-don't you do that again!" he sobbed, a fresh wave of tears pouring down his face. "Don't ever go near those thorns! Not ever!"

"But I- I lost your ball," Zeb whispered meekly. "Your favorite ball."

"So what? You're my favorite _friend_. I'd care more if I lost _you_ in those thorns than any stupid ball."

"But I didn't-"

"Zeb, you're bleeding," Alex pointed out in worry as he scrambled off of him. When the eight-year-old looked down at his hand, it was to find it bleeding from several tiny punctures – the places where the thorns had fed.

"It's all right," he tried to wave his friend off. "It'll be fine by tonight anyway."

"But what's it going to do in the meantime? Bleed everywhere?" Alex demanded petulantly as he pulled off his nice vest, beginning to tear it into strips.

"Alex, no!" Zeb tried to argue. "Your dad's gonna be angry at you."

"Good," the younger boy snapped right back, clumsily starting to wrap the strips of fine cloth around Zeb's hand and fingers. By the time he was finished, there was a crude but well-meant bandage wrapped around the half-Fey's injured hand.

For another long moment, Zeb stared down at his hand, tiny pinpricks of blood already showing through the remnants of his friend's vest. It didn't hurt much. All he was really left with was a warm, tingling feeling in his tummy.

"Thank you," he said quietly as he looked back up at his friend. Alex smiled at him as he offered him a hand up.

"It's nothing. Let's get back. There are other toys we can play with."

"Right," Zeb said, his voice still quiet as he let Alex pull him to his feet and begin to lead him back through the forest.

Even with Alex's worry, even with the warnings his mother had always given him, Zeb couldn't quite help turning to look back at the thicket, the blanket of thorns that separated their world from...from the _Other_ world. There was no sign of the creature he'd glimpsed earlier, but where he had thrust his hand into the barrier, where his blood still clung to the thorns, a single red rose had bloomed. And as he watched, its blood-red petals slowly turned purple. All the while, the faint strains of that same song pulled at his errant, frightened thoughts – a song that was both comfort and curse. He had heard it all his life, only now the words had changed.

_Come away, O __**faerie**_ _child_

_To the waters and the wild_

_With a faerie, hand in hand..._

"Zeb, come on," Alex kept at him, tugging at his hand all the more insistently as he half-pulled him back through the forest.

"I...right- I just-" the boy fought to get the words out, even though he didn't really know what they were. He was still struggling to tear his gaze away from the rose when something new really _did_ seize his attention.

"_Garazeb!_" his mother's sharp voice lanced into his ears, finally snapping his eyes back the way he'd first run. His mother was racing toward them along that same path, her long hair coming loose from its braids and her hunting dress in disarray. He had no idea how she seemed to do that every time, showing up within a few moments of him either getting into or out of trouble.

"Uh...hi, Mum."

"What are you doing out here?" she demanded as she snatched him up in her arms. "You _know_ you're not supposed to be out this far!"

"I'm sorry! It's just- the ball got away and I tried to get it back, but it- Mum, come on! Put me down!" he snarled, struggling without success to escape from her hold. Most boys' mothers struggled with picking them up as young as five, but most boys also didn't have disgraced faerie knights for mothers. If he were willing to admit it to himself, Zeb would probably have to acknowledge that his mother would be able to pick him up and sling him over her shoulder with ease even when he got to be a grownup.

"I'm sorry, Lady Orrelios," Alex also apologized, formally bowing his head to his friend's mother. "I tried to stop him."

"I don't doubt it, Alex. You're a good boy."

Zeb started to protest again, but was harshly shushed by his mother when she looked back toward the stretch of thorny brambles they'd been walking away from. As the little boy watched, a look of horror spread over her face. With him still in her arms, she moved slowly toward the Divide, as if pulled against her will.

"No..._please, no_," he heard her whispering as they drew closer. When they finally reached the Divide, she reached out her free hand to pluck the odd little rose that had sprung from Zeb's spilled blood. As she held it out in front of them, just staring at it, he felt her start to tremble.

"Oh...Zeb...my little boy...my _little boy_."

"Mum? What's wrong?" he asked her, trying and failing to get her to look at him. Had _he_ done something?

But then an angry _snarl_ tore through the faerie knight's deceptively delicate frame, causing her son's heart to race in terror at the sound.

"Not my child. Not my child, you _beast,_" she growled low in her throat before crushing the fragile bloom in a tight, shaking fist. Then she flung the petals to the wind and they were suddenly back in the castle, alone in one of its many passageways.

His mother held him tightly in her arms as she collapsed against the stone wall, sinking slowly to the floor. All the while, Zeb glanced frantically about for Alex, worried that he might still be alone out in the forest. But he was quickly relieved to see his friend beside them. Alex's eyes were impossibly wide as he moved in close to them. Zeb reached a hand out for his, shaken by his mother's rage and terror.

"I'm sorry- if I frightened you boys," his mother said softly. "But we couldn't stay there. Garazeb...this is the _last time_ I'm going to tell you. _Don't go out there._ Don't go anywhere _near_ the Divide. It's too dangerous," she told him, her voice growing hard as she hugged him tightly against her breast.

"Mum...wha- what _happened?_" he tried to ask her, unable to keep his voice from shaking. "What was that?"

"I- it's difficult to explain, dear heart," she said, her hand becoming a little gentler as she ran it up and down his back. "You will understand when you're older. For now...all you need to understand is that there is something very _dangerous_ out in the Divide. It will take you away from me if you let it. Do not let it."

"Lady Orrelios?" Alex suddenly spoke up, squeezing Zeb's hand a little tighter. "I won't let it."

"Alex?"

"I don't know what's out there...but I won't let it take Zeb away. He's my best friend," he said, looking from Zeb's mother back to him. "I'll do whatever it takes to keep him safe. I promise."

Loosening her grip on Zeb just a little, his mother smiled as she reached a hand over to ruffle his friend's blond hair. "Thank you, Alexsandr. You really are a good boy."

"Tell that to my dad sometime," Alex said with a small, pained laugh, only half-joking. As Zeb and his mother laughed with him, they all started in on a round of play wrestling. Zeb was quickly able to forget the incident, little knowing how it weighed on his mother's mind.

XxX

_The boy's friend kept his vow well, doing everything in his power to keep the young half-Fey's attention from anything to do with faeries. But the two boys were growing every day and the same games and diversions could not hold their interest as they once did_. _Their toy swords became true weapons as they began to take their place among the king's warriors. They began to see how bitterly divided the humans and half-Fey still often were._

_And, as had happened with the lord's son,the young half-Fey began to draw others to him. Others who, like him, were lost and alone._

XxX

The attack was long over by the time their contingent arrived. Reports had been coming in for months of a gang of bandits attacking villages and wandering groups with even whispers of half-Fey blood among them. Humans who took up weapons of cold iron against children with strange eyes and stranger gifts. When a scout had returned to the castle with news of an attack upon a traveling band nearby, Zeb, Alex, and a few others were sent out, but they'd arrived in time to do little more than count the dead. While half of them began to gather up the bodies for some sort of burial, the others broke off to search the surrounding woods for any survivors. It was then that Zeb found a small diamond blade flying past his ear, barely missing striking him.

As the throwing knife buried itself in the tree behind him, Zeb whipped out his own weapon – a similarly diamond-bladed sword that he could handle without incident. He raised it just in time to block the second knife flung at him.

"Come to pick off the survivors?" a voice demanded from the trees, its owner unseen.

"What are you talkin' about?" Zeb fired back as he and Alex moved to stand back to back, covering each other, he with his sword and the human with his crossbow. "We came here to help."

"A little late for that," the voice snapped, another knife flying toward Alex from a completely different direction. Zeb wasn't agile enough to block with his sword, so he simply let the blade pierce his arm, feeling the sting of it just below his elbow.

"Zeb!" his friend cried out in worry.

"s'all right," Zeb hissed back, in pain, but aware the wound would heal quickly. "He's just scared."

"Scared? I'll give you scared! You won't trick me that easily" their unseen assailant snarled at them as several more knives flew from the trees. Zeb didn't hesitate. He could take it.

Alex could not.

Throwing his sword down, he turned and seized his friend in his arms, flinging them both to the ground. He managed to miss a few of the daggers, but most found their target, embedding themselves in his back. He cried out in pain, holding Alex all the more tightly against him, keeping him pinned beneath the bulk of his body.

"Zeb! _No!_" his cry rose to join with Zeb's, and it tore at something in the young half-Fey's heart to look down and see the anguish in his friend's eyes. But it tore worse to see that anguish solidify into anger when he saw Alex struggle to reach for his second stash of bolts – the ones that contained cold iron.

"Don't," Zeb hissed, laying a hand heavily on Alex's. "Don't do it. He'll never trust us if you do."

"But he _hurt_ you," Alex protested, that same look of anguish quavering beneath the anger in his amber eyes.

"Won't kill me," Zeb grunted, his touch softening against his friend's skin. "If we're gonna help this poor bleeder, we can't use cold iron against him."

"Fine," the human hissed back, though anything else he might've said was quickly silenced when Zeb tensed against him, sensing their opponent's movements in the changes in the air. He was moving through the trees, _with_ them almost. He would emerge soon to unleash his killing blow.

Nodding silently to indicate where the other half-Fey would emerge, Zeb shifted his weight to allow Alex to reach for his fallen sword. His hand barely had time to close around the hilt before their assailant was emerging from the trees to fall upon them. Zeb rolled aside to let Alex up, the diamond blade flashing as he thrust it up beneath their opponent's overhead strike.

Alex drove the sword deep into the half-Fey's body, the force of his strike and his anger enough to carry the man back against one of the trees, the blade penetrating through his back and biting into the wood, pinning him there.

"How _dare_ you attack blood of the House Organa?!" he snarled, digging the blade in that much deeper.

"_What?_" the other half-Fey returned in disbelief, blue eyes going wide.

"You heard me correctly. The man you attacked is the son of Zenarab Orrelios, beloved younger brother of King Organa. So if you feel like _dying_, by all means, press your attack."

"Right, because I _knew_ that," their would be attacker growled, though there was a slight edge of fear to his voice now.

"Alex," he scolded his friend as he slowly pulled himself into a sitting position, working to pull the knives from his back. "You don't have to scare the kid. Nobody's getting executed." For the half-Fey was indeed young. Maybe not quite a kid anymore, but certainly younger than him and Alex. For the most part, this one looked human, his skin tan and his long brown hair tied at the base of his neck. Even his ears were the normal round of a human. The only physical tell he seemed to have was the faint moonglow of his crystal blue eyes.

"I'm not a kid!" he insisted, struggling briefly against Alex's pin, but his indignant demeanor was soon replaced with a look of helpless sadness. "The kids are all dead. They...they killed them."

"Do you know who they were?" Zeb asked him, wincing as he pulled out yet another knife, a fresh trickle of blood flowing down his shoulder.

"I don't. I just know they weren't only human. There were some half-Fey in that band. Maybe even one true Fey. I'm not sure. I couldn't get a good look," he admitted, plainly disappointed with himself.

Zeb and Alex shared a look at that. This was the first they'd heard of this gang consisting of more than just humans. It _was_ possible they were merely a gang of thieves, but then they wouldn't likely be attacking groups of only half-Fey. That was more ideology than a common thief tended to have.

But...a faerie in human lands? There had been no word of one in a long time. None but his own mother. What could that possibly mean?

"Be careful of those," Alex scolded him as he pulled yet another knife free. "Those wounds _are_ still going to bleed."

"Really? I didn't know that," he jibed back, pointedly pulling out another knife, though it did draw a fresh cringe from him. Just because this wasn't going to kill him didn't mean it didn't hurt. Alex just rolled his eyes in response.

The pinned half-Fey looked between them for sever moments before rolling his own eyes skyward. Then he actually _melted_ into the bark of the tree, completely disappearing before melting back out of the side of it, free of the sword that had pinned him. He then summoned all of his knives back to him.

"So you're...Garazeb Orrelios?" the younger man asked him.

"I am," he answered as Alex moved to kneel beside him, starting to look over his injuries.

"Then that'd make you...Syfarre's bastard," he said to Alex, clearly without thinking, and he seemed to realize that when he saw how Alex stiffened at the mention of his father's name.

"You are not wrong. My _preference_ is to be called Alexsandr, but if that does not suit you_, _I would have you call me by my _mother's_ name instead," he said to the younger man in a sharp voice.

"And that is?"

"Kallus. Alexsandr Kallus."

"Yeah. I think I can do that."

"Puts us at a bit of a disadvantage, though," Zeb pointed out, feeling himself flush a little as Alex started to pull his shirt off to tend to his wounds. "You know us, but we don't know who _you_ are."

The other half-Fey looked between the pair of them for several moments before finally coming out with, "Jarrus. My name is Kanan Jarrus."

"Well, good to know you, Kanan Jarrus," Zeb said, reaching out to shake his fellow half-Fey's hand and, in the process, catching a glimpse of another of his physical tells. He saw the beginnings of a wing tattoo at his shoulder, a pattern of deep green and swirling brown that no human artist could hope to duplicate. Whether he could call those wings into reality, who could guess, but Zeb had little doubt he'd been born with the mark. "Maybe we can make better impressions than tryin' to kill each other in the future."

"Famous last words," Alex couldn't seem to help quipping.

XxX

_Much better impressions were made, as it happened. The younger half-Fey quickly fell in with the pair, becoming just as strong a friend. Over the following year their little circle grew larger with the addition of another young half-Fey, a woman with pale green skin who often kept her most distinctly faerie feature, a pair of head tails, hidden beneath a veil. She also kept with her an odd little raven whose underplumage would sometimes appear red or orange in the right light. He was a grumpy, contrary creature toward most everyone, everyone except the young woman, really. All three men found themselves at the mercy of the raven's beak on more than one occasion._

_Their two new companions quickly took up with each other, but the two best friends were much slower to it, despite their friends constantly pushing them toward it. They had both danced around the idea of truly __**being**_ _together almost from the first moment each had understood what it was to desire another person. Had danced, never broached, because they both feared harming their friendship. What they shared with each other was the truest relationship either of them had, and as much as they both longed, __**ached**_ _for one other, they also desperately feared losing one another. So they remained like that, so close but always just out of reach, suspended with that last little bit of space they kept so carefully between them._

_When they finally went breathlessly into each other's arms, it was like nothing so much as the breaking of a dam._

XxX

Zeb's groan as Alex took one of his ears in his mouth was almost embarrassingly loud. Who knew those ears were so sensitive?

"Mm...you like that?" Alex moaned around the mouthful of sensitive flesh.

"Hngh..._Gods_," was all he could manage with the sensation coursing through his body. As Alex ran his tongue along the slender, pointed tip of his ear, he half felt like the bones in his body had simply melted away, leaving him to languish in a pool of pure feeling. He could honestly drown in this pool that was his friend...his Alex...

The human groaned just as loudly when Zeb's fingers dug a little more insistently into his hips, his body writhing with need against the tree where the half-Fey held him pinned.

"We can still hear you, you know?" Kanan's teasing voice called to them from somewhere in the direction of the camp.

Zeb growled in annoyance. "So go find yourself another camp!" he called back, only half-teasing. "Pretty sure you 'n Hera have been pushin' for this."

"You know, I'm fairly confident you'll be able to hear us no matter _how_ far we go," Alex joined in. Even in the dim glow of the moonlight, Zeb could see how his pale face flushed at his own words. But when he noticed Zeb looking down at him, his awkward smile became something a little more inviting. "What would you say to a little hide and seek, my liege?"

"I'd say you won't get very far," Zeb pointed out as he ran his fingers through Alex's hair. Then he pressed his nose against the pulse point in the human's neck, breathing deeply of the scent of him. _Gods_, how that scent drove him wild. "Nowhere you can go I can't catch that scent."

"I'm actually counting on it," Alex said, his expression that odd mix of embarrassment, invitation, and desire. He inhaled a trembling breath of his own before pulling Zeb down into a deep kiss. But the half-Fey barely had a chance to enjoy that taste he'd dreamed of for so long before Alex was slipping out of his grasp, whispering, "Come find me, Zeb," before vanishing into the night.

Zeb could hardly allow himself to give Alex the courtesy of a head start before setting off into the darkness. Nothing but his oldest friend's tantalizing essence to guide him through the trees.

He followed that heady scent through the trees like a hound after a rabbit, eager to claim his prize, to bury his own scent deep inside Alex's...to take yielding flesh in his mouth...to lose himself so deeply within this man he loved he might never find his way back again...

Zeb pursued the scent of his lover for what felt like miles through the forest, his senses so focused on _Alex_ he hardly noticed true time or distance. By the time the human's trail came to an end, he had the very distinct feeling that something had been awakened inside of him.

The scent came to a stop in a clearing of oak and yew trees. Zeb didn't notice much else about the space until he started to notice the scent that was mixing in with Alex's.

It was the scent of roses.

Growing upon vines and in spreads like carpets all about the grove were roses. Some white and some pink and some peach, but for the most part, they were red. The color of the blossoms was made all the deeper by the pale, dappled moonlight shining down through the yew branches.

Briefly confused by the strong mingling of scents, Zeb shook his head in an effort to clear it; he only just caught the flicker of movement out of the corner of his eye. Moving swiftly and silently after it, he began to circle the tree where he'd seen the brief motion. It was only the practiced, light footsteps of his companion that gave him away to the half-Fey's more-than-human hearing. Making an exaggerated circle around the tree, he spun around just in time to see Alex attempting to sneak up on him.

Zeb play-growled as he pounced his friend, drawing a surprised but delighted cry from him. Alex drew several excited, shuddering breaths as the half-Fey pinned him against the oak tree. Lowering his head to meet the human in another searing kiss, hands scrabbling to pull his shirt open, he didn't really become aware of their positions until he heard the sound of ripping fabric. Only he was surprised to discover when he looked that it wasn't _he_ who had done the tearing, as he'd expected, but Alex, just as desperate to divest him of his clothing.

For a single, protracted moment, the two of them looked down, at the places where their hands gripped each other, both eager and frightened to continue – on the verge of something they had both _longed_ for for so many years_..._of a change so profound it defied comprehension. Then, as if on cue, they looked back up at each other. Zeb reached a hand up to cup Alex's cheek in his palm.

"Do you know how long I've loved you?" he found himself asking as he ran a thumb along that cheek, mesmerized by the contrast of his own dark skin against the human's pale flesh.

Alex smiled up at him, amber eyes now bright with the sudden threat of tears. Leaning into the touch, somehow tender amidst the ferocity of their desire, he lifted his own hand up to lay it over top of Zeb's. "I don't, but I imagine it's nearly as long as _I_ have loved _you_...my prince," he said softly. It wasn't a title Zeb really had; as the son of a lesser prince, he wasn't likely to ever gain an actual title, but it was something Alex had always called him, more from affection than anything else. "Perhaps I didn't have a name for it as a child, but I have loved you always...from the first moment you didn't turn from me...when you learned who my father was," he said, turning his head to the side to press a loving kiss to Zeb's palm.

The kiss was a little thing, but somehow so much more intimate than ripping each other's clothes off. Zeb sighed in pleasure, continuing to stroke his lover's face. "About the same..._oh_...when you didn't run screamin' after seein' me put my fist through a wall." He groaned a little louder when Alex trailed his kisses onto his fingers, kissing every inch of skin he possibly could, from wrist to knuckle to tip. Once he'd kissed every bit of Zeb's hand, he moved on to a somewhat more lewd action, sucking intently on his large fingers. The half-Fey couldn't help his gasp when his lover released the last finger with a particularly filthy _pop_.

Alex tore his shirt the rest of the way open, hands lingering over his belt a moment before pulling him flush against his body, allowing him to feel his eagerness. After another breathless kiss, he whispered against his lips, "I want you inside me. I want you inside me _now_."

"Gonna need a bit more than saliva if you wanna take anything of mine," Zeb pointed out, nipping hungrily at his bottom lip.

"Zeb, come on," Alex whined faintly, grinding subtly against him. "Waste a little magic. It won't take much. I'm ready now."

Zeb drew a stuttering breath at his friend's request. Alex knew his power was limited, that it didn't always work, but likely they were both too far gone by this point to care about the risk. He allowed his own hands to linger over Alex's belt another moment before ripping it open, then slowly lowering his pants down over his hips, bringing him into view.

It wasn't as if this was the first time he'd seen Alex undressed. Gods knew he'd seen _that_ sight often enough (seen and catalogued a little more intently than he would readily admit), but there was something different about seeing him like this. Seeing him like this and knowing that _he_ was the cause of it...that his best friend wanted this as much as he did. It was with that thought in mind that he slid his hand between Alex's legs, brushing very purposefully past his already straining cock to rub his fingers at the taut muscles of his entrance. He listened to his lover moan helplessly for several moments before even allowing a drop of magic to trace his fingertips.

But it didn't seem to take any more than that little bit. With just that gentle brush of his power-tipped fingers, Alex was crying out, knees buckling. With that single touch he was raw and open, ready and _so_ eager. Even so, Zeb couldn't help but worry.

"You all right?" he asked, supporting the writhing human's weight between himself and the oak.

"Ungh..._Gods_," the shorter male groaned, slack-jawed and dazed. The only movement he could seem to manage was several erratic rolls of his hips. "Zeb...put _something_ inside me. I don't care what. Fingers, tongue, prick, it doesn't matter. Just _fuck me,_" he demanded.

"Heheh, sometimes I forget the _mouth_ you've got underneath all that breeding," Zeb teased as he helped Alex quickly shed the rest of his clothing.

"At this point, I will say whatever it takes to get you in me, my prince. I have been empty too long," he admitted, the last more of a plea – a confession. He clung tightly to Zeb as they kissed again. Then Zeb was lifting him in his arms, careful not to be too rough as he laid him down amongst the sweet-scented tangles of roses. He didn't notice it at a conscious level in that moment, but the blossoms almost seemed to...conform to his desire, creating a bed for his love that was free of thorn and snare.

Then, so suddenly and naturally he was almost unaware of the actual moment, he was falling upon Alex, pressing into him as easily as a key to its lock_. _He had no words to describe that first penetration. Only that it felt almost as if he were sinking deep into his friend, but rather than fearing he might never resurface, he found he just wanted to dive deeper, to join with Alex in every way he possibly could.

The sound of Alex's cries as he thrust into him over and over again were the sweetest Zeb had ever heard. His friend was always so straight-laced and uptight, it unbound something inside of him to hear him come so completely undone beneath him. Snarling possessively, he actually sank his fangs into the human's shoulder, sinking in as deep as he could go just to _taste_ him, to hear him cry out in such a desperate voice, cleaving even more tightly to him with every movement, every thrust, every kiss.

He couldn't say how long they kept at it, half-wrestling and half-fucking upon the carpet of rose petals, no longer certain of who was where, knowing only how tightly they were bound together...how deeply and fully they were uniting as one. When he brought his lover to climax, it was with a scream that seemed to resound from the trees themselves.

The moment between Alex's orgasm and his own seemed to stretch out, spinning back upon itself like a snatch of eternity as he worked in the human's pliant body again and again. He didn't know it then, but it was a moment he would have to cling to tightly...with everything he was, in the years to come. In that moment, the moment his own bliss spilled over into perfect completion, he was happy. He was the happiest he'd ever been, and he let that fierce, unbridled joy flow through every strain of his voice as he cried his love's name to the stars themselves.

He wasn't fully aware of what happened in the moments after, but when he finally did manage to bring himself back to coherent thought, it was to find himself lying amongst the roses with Alex, still quite thoroughly tied together. Alex was only half-conscious himself, lying entangled with him as he ran his fingers through Zeb's dark purple hair.

"Still with me...Garazeb?" the human asked in a dazed voice, the quiet rumble of his words thrumming deep in Zeb's chest.

"Always," he returned, arms curling a little more intently around his lover's still trembling frame. Then he leaned down to press a kiss to the top of the human's golden head. "So how long would you say it's proper to wait before I ask you to marry me?"

He couldn't properly see the expression on Alex's face, but he could definitely feel the heat of the man's blush against his chest. When he spoke, his voice was just a touch higher than usual. "Well...if we go by the old way of thinking, we're married already. Accepting your essence to my own is my consent."

"Heh, well, much as I like that idea, the old way also said we shouldn't be together at all...or my parents. So I guess we'll just have to make it up as we go," he said, lifting a hand to remove one of the rings he wore – a gold band that sported a stylized falcon's head with inlaid chips of amethyst for eyes.

"Zeb..." Alex started to protest when he offered the ring to him, slowly sitting up on top of him. "You can't- give that to _me_. It's a treasure of the House Organa. I'm just...I'm _nobody._ The bastard son of a lesser lord-"

"And _I'm_ the son of a bastard prince. Don't act like I'm givin' somethin' up to be with you. Neither of us is goin' anywhere. We can be nobodies together. Besides...if you married me, you would technically become part of House Organa anyway. But- forget about all of that for a minute. I'm askin' _you_; not either of our houses. Would...do you- want what I'm offerin'?" he asked with a slight edge of fear, holding out more than just the ring in his trembling hand.

Alex looked down at him for several moments, actual tears spilling silently down his face, his expression caught somewhere between adoration and heartbreak. But finally he nodded, banishing all doubt as he took what Zeb offered him, cradling the ring in his palm as if it might vanish.

"You know, this- this will never fit me, Garazeb. Not really."

Zeb chuckled as he sat up, though his face was all warmth and joy as he drew his betrothed into a kiss. When they took a moment to breathe, he couldn't help smiling as he ran his fingers through the softness of the human's hair. "I don't think Uncle'll mind us getting it reshaped. I just-"

"Ah, so you have awakened. Good. Let us begin."

XxX

_"Come away, o faerie child..."_

_"__**Wait!**_ _Take me instead."_

_"You? You do not know what it is you offer me, human. It is more than merely taking the boy's place. __**You**_ _are not enough. You will have to __**become**_ _what I require. You will give all that you are, lose __**everything**_ _that you love. __**That**_ _is what it means to offer yourself in his stead."_

_"But...if I did...you would let him go free?"_

_"Yes."_

_"Alex, no! Don't! Don't do this. Please...__**please!**__"_

_"I love you...my Garazeb. I shall __**always**_ _love you. Nothing they do can take that away from me. There is nothing this world could ask of me that I would not gladly give for love of you. Only...do not forget me."_

_"Alex..."_

_"I am always with you, my Zeb...my love."_

XxX

Zeb jolted awake with a painful snap of breath – as if he _hadn't_ been breathing the moment before waking. Feeling the weight of sheer terror on his chest, the half-Fey let his gaze sweep the grove.

He could only vaguely recall how it had looked before – a moonlit clearing covered with roses. But from that hazy image in his mind, what currently _was_ looked nothing like that. A grove that had been in full spring looked almost dead. All that remained of the roses were scattered patches of dead, dried up petals. And in the harsh light of morning, many of those petals were purple.

_Come away, o faerie child..._

The sudden bleak transformation was far from the worst of it, though.

No.

The worst was that he was alone.

There was no sign of Alex anywhere.

"Alex!" he called out as he leapt to his feet. "_Alex!_"

He searched frantically all about the grove. He searched and searched, but there was no trace of his friend to be seen. Even his scent, always so distinct and comforting to the half-Fey, had vanished with the night.

"_Alex!_"

He could remember why they had come here. He could remember what they had done. Yes. He could remember making love to Alex _vividly_. He even remembered giving him the ring, now gone from his finger. But...the time after...

He couldn't remember.

He couldn't remember _anything_.

_Come away, o human child..._

"_Alex!_"

He couldn't say if he remembered or only dreamed it, but there was an image of his lover, smiling sadly as he reached out to him. Then the press of his lips in a kiss goodbye. Something _horrible_ had happened.

But _what?_

_Alex, what have you done? What have __**I**_ _done?_

He felt a crushing weight against his heart, guilt and grief he couldn't understand. There was some kind of power at work keeping him from remembering; he could sense that much. But what was he being kept from remembering? What had _happened_ last night? Where was Alex?

Why did he feel as if he'd lost him forever?

"_ALEX!_"

XxX

(A/N) So...shall we play a game?


	2. Second Night

(A/N) Well, the world's done a...bit of falling apart since last I posted. I figured you all could use a fairytale. While we're far from the happy ever after at this point, there is definitely copious amounts of sexy time, so...enjoy that! :D

**A Rose Upon a Thorn**

_CHapter 2: Second Night_

_The disappearance of the lord's son did not improve relations between the humans and the half-Fey of the realm. If anything, the lord used the whole matter to stir up discontent, going so far as to accuse the prince's son of murdering him._

_Now, anyone who truly __**knew**_ _the pair would know that such wild accusations were nothing less than ridiculous. The prince's son never could've harmed a hair on his friend's head, let alone murder him. But the young half-Fey still felt guilty for being unable to protect the man he loved, so he did little to discourage the rumors that began to spread. He did everything in his power to locate his beloved, but found not even the slightest trace of him._

_With the lord's rabble-rousing, the two peoples were soon at odds once again, despite all the progress made under the new king. The prince's son and his growing band of companions became something of a specialized task force serving in the king's name, responding to reports of attacks on half-Fey, ranging farther and farther from their home territory._

_Seven years passed away in this manner, busy but not full, until the little band found itself tracking the same group of bandits it had been trailing for years. This time under the rumor that they were kidnapping half-Fey children for some unknown purpose._

XxX

**Janet sits in her lonely room, sewing a silken seam**

**Looking out on Carterhaugh, among the roses green.**

**And Janet sits in her lonely bower, sewing a silken thread**

**And longed to be at Carterhaugh, among the roses red.**

XxX

Zeb shifted his shoulders impatiently as he, Hera, Chirrut, and Bodhi watched the line of wagons go by. He and a few of the others in their little band would've preferred to attack scum like this head on, he knew, but clearer heads had prevailed in the planning of this operation. They only needed to wait until the caravan had passed fully into the forest.

Then they could spring their trap.

The lone caw of a raven sounded overhead as Chopper took wing from deep in the forest, letting them know that Kanan and the others were ready.

_Come on, Kanan. I hate this, too, but there's just four more wagons. Keep it together._

But with only three wagons remaining, everything fell apart with a single whispered warning from Chirrut.

"He will not wait. Nor will Baze. A child cries out in pain."

And indeed, no sooner had he spoken than the horrific scream of a child in pain tore through the night air. Zeb actually _felt_ the moment his younger friend's control _snapped_, rippling in waves of pure rage upon the air.

An answering shout rose above the trees as the forest itself seemed to come alive, tree branches reaching out like skeletal hands to seize the wagons and the humans driving them.

"Dammit, Kanan!" Hera hissed as they raced into the fray. They wouldn't have more than a few minutes to act.

And of course, from one of the last two wagons, just beyond the reach of the now writhing forest, came a cruel feminine voice.

"_Don't just __**stand there**__, you imbeciles! KILL THEM! Kill them all!_"

"NO!" Zeb snarled, running faster. It wasn't them she was talking about.

He reached the first wagon entrapped by the tree branches, shoving past the human driver, but seeing that he was already too late. One of the branches had impaled the half-Fey guard, but that hadn't stopped her from killing the wagon's other occupants.

Three children. One teenaged and the other two young.

Much too young.

Roaring in anger, Zeb impaled the half-Fey woman with his own blade before reaching for hers, piercing her heart with the cold iron-tipped blade to make certain she would never draw breath again. He believed in mercy to a degree, but anyone who could murder a child didn't deserve it.

"_Zeb!_" he heard Bodhi's warning cry from outside. Leaping out of the wagon, he looked back to see a mass of dark energy rise from the last wagon, lifted on silent wings as a largely formless mass before a clear, cold voice rose to the sky, blotting out the light of the moon with unnatural darkness. Then that shapeless figure swept into the trees, speeding toward a goal. Zeb glanced to Hera in fear.

"Kanan," they whispered together in worry before following after the dark spectre, down the line of wagons, past panicking horses and the dying screams of both children and their captors as their fellow knights tried and failed to save them.

The dark shape descended upon its target at the front of the wagon train, sweeping over Kanan Jarrus in a wave of bitter, black power. When the figure resolved itself into a more recognizable shape, it was as a woman in a voluminous black cloak, her pale skin barely visible within its recesses. With an angry snarl, she used her power to jerk Kanan away from the wagon he'd been liberating. He barely had time to raise his crystalline blade against hers. Even from a distance, Zeb could sense that the blade she wielded was pure cold iron. How she could handle such a weapon without risk, who could say, but if Kanan took even one swipe from that thing...

"Do you know what you have achieved here, foolish knight?" the faerie woman demanded as they battled. "All you've done is saved me the trouble of having to haul these _beastly_ creatures all the way back through the Divide and killing them myself."

"So what do you _want_ with them, Ventress?" Kanan snarled right back, their blades clashing and tangling. "What's the point of any of this? Why make the effort to take them through the Divide if you're just going to _kill them?!_"

"Oh, if any of them had survived, that child would've served a _far_ greater purpose than you can imagine. All you've accomplished is..._thinning the herd_ for us, if you will," she said with a cruel, ugly smile.

Letting out a wordless scream of rage, Kanan came at her with fury in his eyes, his blade locking fiercely with hers. And as they grappled, Baze, Bodhi, Cassian, Wedge, and Hera all closed in around them, crossbows held at the ready, waiting for an opportunity. But Asajj Ventress did not give them one.

"_Back!_ All of you!" she snarled with a wave of her hand, flinging the ring of humans and half-Fey back with her power.

Kanan attempted to press his advantage when her now single-handed grip faltered briefly against him, but she forced him back with a burst of strength, quickly redirecting her blade to slice along his side.

"KANAN!" Hera cried out as he went down. But before Ventress could move in to land her killing blow, Zeb and Chirrut were there, engaging her in a fresh round.

"Petty little knights," she taunted in a singsong sort of voice as they traded blows. "You could not save those children. What do you expect to accomplish against me other than _dying?_"

"You know, My Lady, I'm not _technically_ a knight," Chirrut returned in a voice laced with amusement, his staff holding up perfectly well against the blows from her sword.

"What matter?" the faerie snarled, irked at his flippant attitude. "Knight or no, human or Fey, your blood will stain my blade just as readily."

"Not if _I've_ got anything to say about it!" Zeb snapped back, engaging her in a quick series of strikes, pulling her attention away from Chirrut.

"Ah, Garazeb Orrelios," she began with a disarming sneer. "Traitor's get. How does your whore mother these days?"

"Drag _my_ name through the mud all you want, but of my mum, don't you say one word!" Zeb snarled at his opponent, forcing her back with sheer brute strength. When she missed her footing, Chirrut trapped her, pinning her against him with his staff against her neck, quickly disarming her. Zeb laughed quietly as he approached them. "Bet you couldn't hold a candle to my mum back in the day."

"I could hold many things to Lirakal Orrelios, _half breed!_" she snarled at him, struggling against Chirrut's hold on her. "Several things I'm sure _you_ would have no wish to hear about. The stories I could tell you about your mother..."

"_Enough!_" Zeb snapped, raising his blade to strike.

"You're right, little one. It is enough," she hissed before striking back. Of a sudden, a new cold iron weapon was in her hand and she was driving it through her blind captor's middle. He went down with an agonized cry, his flesh burning around the dagger.

"CHIRRUT!" Baze screamed his husband's name, moving in to catch him as Ventress spun away from him, recalling her sword to her hand.

"_Damn you!_" Zeb shouted, moving in on her again, trading several furious blows with the faerie knight, driving her as far away from his friends as he could. She didn't need to taunt him further.

His rage was awakened.

And she used that to her advantage, keeping him just barely on balance as he fought to get in a hit. It didn't take much for her to slip in under his defenses and disarm him, laying him out flat.

"I will not have a wretch like you _staining_ the ancient name Orrelios a moment longer," she declared as she raised her blade for a killing blow. "Just know you could've cleansed the taint of your birth if you hadn't been robbed of your destiny."

"What- what are you-" he started to ask, but before Ventress could deliver her strike, one of her hands was pierced by a cold iron crossbow bolt, drawing a harrowing shriek of pain from her throat.

Zeb glanced back toward his friends, but the bolt hadn't come from any one of them, all busy trying to help Kanan and Chirrut.

The Fey knight continued to snarl in pain as she backed away from him, cradling her mangled hand against her chest.

"_Fine_," she hissed, glowering up in the direction the bolt had come from. "Have your little slut. I care not."

Then she was gone, and the moonlight returned to the forest as if it had never been gone.

"Zeb!" Wedge called out for him.

"I'm all right. I'm comin'," he called back as he climbed to his feet, but before he did, he went to retrieve the bolt Ventress had left behind. Picking up the little projectile with only the tips of his fingers, he took a moment to examine it.

"No," he whispered in shock. "It can't be. It _can't_."

But it could and it was. His more than human eyes could not be fooled by the moonlight. The shaft of cold iron was marked with the sigil for House Orrelios – a bit of Fey livery his mother had always insisted they could use. Even if his father had permitted him to, Alex had never wanted to identify himself beneath the banner of Syfarre if he could help it.

_This _was how he had always marked his weapons.

It was the first sign he'd had of Alex since the night he vanished. Could it have been _he_ who'd saved him just now?

_Alex...?_

Holding onto the little bolt until the cold iron burned his skin, Zeb was finally forced to tuck it away in his belt, turning his attention back toward his friends. Kanan lay in Hera's arms, half-incensed as Bodhi tried to treat his injury. Though badly injured, the green knight ought to live with proper treatment. But Chirrut...a wound like that ought to have killed him.

Which was why Zeb found himself both relieved and confused to see him lying in his husband's arms, breathing heavily and covered in a sheen of a sweat, but otherwise seeming to be recuperating.

"Chirrut?" he started, dropping to one knee beside the elder half-Fey. "How're you- holdin' up?"

"Amazingly well for someone whose spleen ought to be lying in the road," he joked.

"Have you- ever been hit with cold iron before?" he asked, glancing between him and Baze, who shook his head with a grunt, as if such a notion were almost insulting to the human warrior's honor as a protector.

"I cannot say as I have," Chirrut returned casually, reaching up a hand to tangle it in Baze's hair. "One tends to avoid the things that can cause slow, painful death, after all."

"Heh, I _wish_ you would avoid things that caused slow, painful death, old crow," Baze grumbled, voice still somehow managing to be fond.

"I don't understand it," Cassian commented as he tended to the wound. "It's- healing like any normal injury."

"You object to my not dying, young pup?" Chirrut teased the teenaged human.

"Of _course_ not. I just-"

"The kids!" Kanan's protesting, delirious voice jolted its way into the conversation. "They're- still alive. Somebody...help those kids!"

"What?" Zeb pressed, rising back to his feet as he looked back toward the wagon Kanan had previously been entering. "No way."

Hurrying toward the wagon, Zeb shoved his way past the bound driver and the slain guard to find two children still in the back of it, shackled to each other with tears streaming down their faces. The girl was gagged and she couldn't have been much older than seven or eight. Her eyes appeared human enough, but her hair was a bright teal color and her ears were elfin. The boy, even younger, had blue eyes that almost seemed to glow in the dim light, and because his gag had come loose, Zeb could see the glint of fangs in his mouth. He didn't know what, but some instinct told him that _this_ was the child who'd cried out before – the one who had called to Kanan.

The two little ones began to cry harder when Zeb climbed into the back of the wagon, the girl screaming and pleading through the gag, shoving at the boy, trying to keep him behind her as best she could while shackled to him.

"Please!" the boy cried out, looking up at Zeb with desperate eyes. "Please don't- we didn'- we didn' do anything wrong! Just let us go! _Please!_"

"No. No," Zeb tried to soothe them, making himself as small and non-threatening as possible in the bed of the wagon. No easy feat, no matter what the situation. "I'm not gonna hurt either of you; I promise. We came here to save you."

Reaching carefully forward, he pulled the gag from the girl's mouth.

"Please," she begged him, still sobbing. "Take them off. _Take them off!_"

"Oh, Gods," he whispered, comprehension dawning as his gaze dropped to the shackles around their wrists and ankles, seeing how the skin was raw and blistered beneath the cuffs. Cold iron. "Wedge! Get in here!"

"What's happening?" the teenaged human asked as he climbed up behind Zeb.

"Those animals have 'em trussed up in cold iron. I can't- there's gotta be a key or something. Find it!" he snapped.

"Oh- oh, _Gods_," he echoed in horror, scrambling to try and find some sort of key on the driver, but Zeb quickly grew tired of waiting for him to come up with something.

Not even bothering to try and find anything to protect himself with, he wrapped his hands around the shackle at the girl's left wrist, ignoring the horrible pain as he began to pull. Skin burning, Zeb cried out with the effort of the task until the iron cuff finally broke in his hands. The girl quickly shoved the horrid thing away. Zeb didn't even take a moment to recover. Biting down hard on his lower lip, he went to work on the next cuff.

"Sir..." the little girl started in fear, in pain.

Zeb ignored her. He had to. Just keeping hold of the poisonous metal was taking every ounce of will he had, let alone breaking it...though he did finally manage to free her other hand.

"Kid," he heard the driver's voice somewhere behind him. "Left pocket. That's where the key is. Get 'em out."

Zeb had managed to free the kids' hands by the time Wedge came back with the key, allowing him to collapse to the floor of the wagon in agony as the human undid the shackles at their ankles.

"It's all right. It's all right now," he heard Wedge soothing them both. "You're safe. They won't hurt you anymore."

Only vaguely was Zeb aware of the little girl crawling to his side, her wrists and ankles badly burnt.

"Thank you," she said to him, voice still wobbling as she laid a hand on his arm.

"No thing, kid," he returned, gradually remastering his breathing. The pain was still pretty bad, but he knew it couldn't possibly compare to what these two little scamps must've suffered the past few weeks.

"Well, looks like _somebody's_ willing to talk," Cassian said as he climbed up onto the driver's seat to confront the man. But the man said nothing more, his expression falling solemn and weary even as Cassian held a knife to his throat.

"Somehow I don't think it's gonna be that easy," Zeb said quietly before asking the little girl, "All right if I pick you up, sweetheart?"

The girl looked afraid for a moment, but ultimately nodded, reaching to grip his shoulder as he lifted her in one arm, being careful not to hold too much of her weight against his hand.

"'bine...me, too?" the boy asked, more of the girl than of Zeb himself.

"Sure. Why not?" he said with a small, pained laugh, barely managing to keep his reaction to a hiss as he lifted the boy in his other arm, carrying them both out of the wagon. It wasn't long before he was surrendering them both to Hera.

"Oh, you poor things," the young woman immediately started in on them, taking the boy in her arms while the girl curled up against her side. Kanan was still resting with his head in her lap, but when he saw the little boy, he reached up a hand to gently ruffle his hair.

"So you're the one," the green knight said softly, apparently getting the same sense Zeb had. "You're the reason I- got stupid."

As the band formed up around their new charges, Zeb found his attention drifting away from the moment, back to the possibility he may have found a clue...after all this time. It was, after all, the night of Calan Mai – May Eve – seven years to the day since he'd lost his Alex...and they were not all that far off from the forest where it had happened.

Carterhaugh.

Attention off and away with possibilities, he found his gaze drawn in the direction Ventress' enraged cry had first indicated, not truly expecting to see anything.

So he was more than a little shocked when he actually _did_ spot something.

Up on a rocky ledge overlooking the forest, he saw it. A lone tawny wolf stood nimbly upon the cliff's edge, its brown and gold patterned fur rippling with the warm spring breeze. And for a moment, just a moment, he could've sworn that wolf was looking directly at him.

_Zeb...my Garazeb...dearest love..._

The words were spoken directly to his heart as the wolf threw its head back and howled, long and clear.

"Alex?" he whispered, hardly daring to hope for an answer.

But no sooner had he spotted the wolf, heard its cry, than it had vanished back into the night, gone as if it had never been.

_Where are you?_

XxX

**She's let the seam fall at her heel, the needle to her toe**

**And she has gone to Carterhaugh as fast as she can go.**

**She hadn't pulled a rose, a rose, a rose, but only one**

**When there appeared him, young Tam Lin, says, "Lady, let alone."**

**"What makes you pull the rose, the rose? What makes you break the tree?**

**What makes you come to Carterhaugh without the leave of me?"**

**"But Carterhaugh is not your own, roses there are many.**

**I'll come and go all as I please, and not ask leave of any."**

XxX

Zeb didn't tell anyone when he left their little camp that night. It wasn't particularly hard to slip past the perimeter they'd set when going out of the camp and not into it.

Was it a foolhardy and dangerous move? Most likely. But he was seeking something and he wasn't really sure what anymore. He didn't want to involve his friends in his delusions. Not after everything that had happened...

He knew the way through the forest of Carterhaugh. He knew it almost better than he knew the way through the keep. The scent of it was burned into his brain and he followed the path like some whipped dog on a leash. All the while he was assaulted by memories...

_The soft feel of Alex's hair between his fingers..._

_The salty-sweet taste of his lips against his..._

_The sound of his pleasure-wracked cry..._

_His pale skin flushed in the moonlight..._

_The strong grip of his thighs as he thrust into him..._

_The __**scent**_ _of him...the heavy, ripe musk of his desire..._

_And the scent of roses..._

And just like that, he was back there. Back in the grove where he had made love to his Alex...where he had lost him...

...and it looked as if no time at all had passed. The grove was hushed and beautiful beneath the moon's silver light, draped all about with vines thick with roses.

The only thing missing was Alexsandr Kallus..._his Alex._

"Alex...where are you?" he whispered in despair as he reached out to pluck one of the roses. "Where'd you go to I can't find you?"

_The lily has a smooth stalk,_

_Will never hurt your hand;_

_But the rose upon her brier_

_Is Lady of the land._

Zeb turned around in shock upon hearing the voice, both familiar and not. He looked across the grove to see a face he did and did not know.

Alexsandr Kallus stood there, dressed all in black, golden and resplendent in the moonlight, but also cold and distant, like starlight shining down through deep water, barely reaching the poor soul drowning within the depths. Though seven years had passed away, he looked not a moment older than when Zeb had last beheld him.

_There's sweetness in an apple tree,_

_And profit in the corn;_

_But lady of all beauty_

_Is a rose upon a thorn._

"Alex?" he whispered, unable to keep his voice from shaking.

Alex tilted his head to the side, offering the half-Fey a wry, familiar smirk as he looked on him.

"Garazeb," the human said, the smirk becoming a touch unnerving as he moved slowly toward him across the grove. "You really ought not do that, you know."

"I- _what?_" he asked, utterly uncomprehending.

"The thorns that drank from you when we were children? The rose that came of that promise? You don't remember?" he asked, deftly slipping the rose from Zeb's fingers.

"No, I- remember, I just-"

"Good," Alex interrupted him, smile brightening as he tucked the rose behind his ear. "I would be almost offended if you'd forgotten. That promise is my life, after all. On the subject of never hurting your hands, though...what _have_ you done to yours?" he asked in admonishment as he lifted up one of Zeb's bandaged hands to examine it.

"I was- helpin' out some kids who were bound with cold iron," he answered awkwardly.

"Ah, well. That's just you all over, isn't it," Alex said with a shake of his head as he began to unwind the bandages Hera had so carefully wrapped hardly an hour before.

"Well, it's...it..._no!_ Alex, what _happened to you?_" he demanded, shifting his grip to take the human's hands in his. "Where have you _been_ all this time? It's been _seven years!_"

"Seven years? Really?" Alex asked him, his look growing distant. "Is that all it's been? To me, it- it feels as though it's been much longer. To my mind...it could've been eons since we were last here together...since you made love to me in this grove. Zeb...my love..." he started, his voice gentle but worried, _so_ worried as he lifted Zeb's hands to his lips, pressing tender kisses to the back of each hand. "You shouldn't _be here_ now. It isn't safe."

"Then come with me," he pleaded, pulling Alex's hands to his chest, up against his heart. "Let's just get out of here. You can tell me what happened when we're safe."

Alex shook his head sadly, prying Zeb's hands open with a strength he definitely hadn't had before. "Dearest, I...I _can't_. If only I could, I'd- I would run away with you...to the ends of the world, but I _can't._ There's nowhere I can go that I could hope to outrun my fate."

"It was you," Zeb started in desperation, lifting a now free hand up to cup Alex's cheek in his palm. "Just now. That was you...wasn't it? You were the one who saved me."

Alex nodded, leaning into Zeb's touch with an expression so full of pain, it about broke the half-Fey's heart. But then he reached for Zeb's other hand and unwrapped it all the way, drawing his burned palm and fingers to his lips and pressing a loving kiss to every bit of damaged skin. And with each kiss, the skin healed a little more, until his hand was as good as new. And while he gazed at his hand in shock, Alex unwrapped the other, running gentle fingers along the burned flesh.

"It works a little differently," he struggled to explain, "because I was human."

"And what are you now?" Zeb couldn't keep himself from asking. Alex looked back up at him, staring at him a long moment before answering.

"I don't know anymore."

This time Alex lowered his head over Zeb's hand, repeating the process to heal it. Only he didn't just kiss this time. Once the skin was healed, he licked and sucked and nipped at it, gaze darting furtively up to Zeb's. And as the intent behind those kisses changed, Zeb felt threads of liquid _need_ travel from his palm straight to his cock, immediately beginning to stir up his long-dormant desire.

Zeb groaned aloud at a particularly fierce lave of Alex's tongue along his palm. He shuddered helplessly against his lover, something inside of him quickly unraveling at the sight of his head moving up and down upon him.

"Alex..." he whimpered, voice already so much higher than he'd thought it capable of going.

As if it wasn't enough, though, Alex had to take it a step further, sucking rather filthily on each of his fingers. They shouldn't be doing this right now, he knew, but he just couldn't help himself. It had been _far_ too long.

Finishing his working over of Zeb's hand with a single kiss to the wrist, Alex pressed him up against a tree before dropping swiftly to his knees. Zeb caught a glimpse of the _hunger_ in those amber eyes before Alex began to nuzzle his face against the new grown bulge in his breeches. Once again, Zeb groaned at the contact.

Somehow it seemed to take both all the time in the world and no time at all for his lover to lay him bare. When he felt Alex press a featherlight kiss to the hot flesh, he had to resist the urge to buck against him.

Alex lifted his eyes to his, holding his gaze as he lavished him with several brief, pointed flicks of his tongue. Then he took the head of his prick into his mouth, sucking intently at the stiff length of flesh for only a few moments before releasing him, leaving the half-Fey to pant harshly as he stared up at him with a knowing smirk.

"You come when I _say_ you come," his lover said to him, and Zeb felt the chain of his power closing around him as the not-quite-human pressed a kiss to his cock. Then Alex was taking him in.

_All_ the way in. When Zeb saw his not unconsiderable length disappear down Alex's throat, his eyes flickered closed and a helpless, strangled _gasp_ slipped from his mouth as his head fell back against the tree. Had he not been under compulsion, he knew, he would've lasted an embarrassingly short amount of time. But, to be fair, it had been awhile. He hadn't been with anyone _since_ Alex. And now...now he wasn't coming until Alex _said_ he was coming. His lover could do whatever he liked to him and he wouldn't reach climax until _he _gave the word.

Alex sucked him slowly, mouth sliding up and down his prick over and over again in torturously slow, gliding motions. He did everything in his power to create sensation in him, and all the while, Zeb's cries grew louder, every nerve catching fire with pleasure. With every move, he felt more and more certain his body could not take anymore, that the next moment his skin would simply ignite outright and he would burst into flame. But that moment never came. Alex held him on the edge of release, every moment thinking of new ways to incite his body to new heights of pleasure. When he finally let Zeb's thoroughly worked cock slide from his mouth, it was with a sinful swirl of his tongue around the engorged head. Zeb was actually weeping by this point, biting down on his own arm in a largely futile effort to muffle the noise.

Rising slowly to his feet, Alex pulled his arm away from his mouth, leaving him open to the demanding kiss he pressed to his lips. Arms wrapping around him, his lover ground his hips subtly against his, letting him feel the bulge of his own erection against his bare, already well-loved cock. He wept weakly into Alex's mouth as they moved together.

When Alex pulled out of the kiss, it was so he could lift his lips to Zeb's ear, whispering to him between flicks of his tongue. "Do you know..._mhmh_...what it's like...to be held in orgasm for a _year_, beloved?" he asked, taking the tip of the pointed ear into his mouth, tongue swirling lusciously about it.

"_Unh_...fucking..._Alex!_" he cried out, tears streaming down his face as he writhed against his lover, a new wave of pleasure striking downward to coil in his belly.

"Don't worry, my love. I don't have a year to keep you like this. My grasp of time manipulation isn't _that_ good. But a faerie can do it, you know. Make years pass in the space of a few minutes. If I could keep you here for eternity, I would. I would make love to you until the stars burned themselves out in the heavens. But...that power comes with a price," he hissed in Zeb's ear before pulling him into a harsh kiss. Then he snarled against his lips, "My love has a _price._"

Then Zeb was lost – lost in the heat and the sweat and the slick and the burn as they moved together against that tree, flesh and power uniting as one with every press, every thrust, every cry. The half-Fey moved violently against his lover, his mind slipping farther and farther away from rational thought with every pulse of pleasure that moved through him. How much would it take...to make him lose his mind altogether?

That fear was far and away, though, only a dim concern among the bliss that consumed him body and soul. Every moment, he sought both release...and a way to hold onto this moment forever. Because while Alex was almost literally killing him with pleasure, he had also been dying without him anyway. What difference did it make? To die here and now, driven mad by this more than mortal pleasure...or later when he inevitably lost him again? There was little difference so far as he was concerned.

Then, suddenly, Alex was whispering the command to him, mouthing the words into his skin.

"Come, Garazeb. _Come for me,_ my love."

And he did.

He knew he screamed as his body gave forth that unimaginable flood of pleasure and power and pain. He could _feel_ the sound as it scraped his throat raw, but he couldn't _hear_ it. It seemed he had lost everything but the ability to just _feel_. Couldn't think, couldn't breathe, couldn't do _anything_ – anything but _feel_ as his very existence was ravaged by pleasure. He was a star catching fire, burning brightest in the moment just before death.

And he did die in that grove. He had little doubt. Reawakening after it was all over was like being reborn. He came to in Alex's arms, both of them leaning heavily against the rose-shrouded tree. When he drew his face up to look Alex in the eye, he was met with a _very_ self-satisfied smirk.

"What do you think, beloved? Worth the waiting for?"

The thing was...it was exactly the sort of thing Alexsandr Kallus would've said. It _was_. But there was just- something in the _way_ he said it. Like he _wanted_ Zeb to punch him in the face for it. Like he was goading him. _Intentionally_ trying to be cruel.

"What's happened to you?" he asked, something inside of him splintering as he acknowledged his next words. "You're not- you're not the Alex I grew up with. You're not the man I remember."

Alex sighed, and if he had been lying to anyone else, he would've succeeded. But Zeb still knew him too well, even after all this time. He could hear the lie of the condescension in his voice at his next words. "No. No, I'm not. You would do better not to look for him. He died. In the arms of a Fey ruler, he perished...trying to bear a burden his human mind was too limited to withstand."

Having said so, he took a step back from Zeb, clearly intending to leave him.

_No!_

Zeb's heart cried out in agony as he reached for him, a single hand closing around his arm.

"Wait! _Please!_"

Kallus looked back at him out of the corner of his eyes. "Consider your next words carefully, Garazeb Orrelios."

"I can't- I can't lose you again."

There was nothing to consider because it was only truth he was speaking. He didn't care what might come of it. The look Kallus fixed him with was largely frustration and pity, tinged with anger and put upon disgust. But at the core of it all, Zeb could see it. He could see the heartbreak.

"Zeb..." he hissed, features twisting in an ugly sneer, though his voice was gentle, "we cannot-"

"_Take me_, Alex," he insisted, hand slipping down to grip his lover's, drawing it up to his lips to drop kisses on the knuckles. "Make love to me..._fuck me_. I don't care which. Just don't leave me."

Alex shook his head. "You don't know- what it is you ask of me, Garazeb. We came very near to the edge this time. Don't- don't make me destroy you."

"Then destroy me," Zeb challenged, voice both dark and desperate. "A little bit more of me's died every day since I lost you. You may as well finish the job. I'd rather die by your hand right now...than try to go on living without you after I've seen you again. That really would kill me. I'm dead either way."

"You don't know what death is," Kallus snarled at him.

"Then prove it to me," Zeb challenged yet again, pulling his one time betrothed into a fierce kiss, cleaving to him as if he'd never let go. And he couldn't help but notice the way Alex's hands reached to grip at his hips. As they began to move together once again, almost involuntarily, Alex growled against him.

"You don't know _anything!_" he snarled, teeth sinking into the half-Fey's lip until he drew blood. "You don't know what I am...what I've given up...you don't even know what you really _look like!_"

"What do you mean?"

Kallus' smirk as he looked into his eyes was halfway to hysterical. Slowly, he shook his head, licking away the droplets of Zeb's blood from his lips. "You are _blind,_ my love...in every way imaginable. If you could see yourself...what truly lies beneath that human flesh-"

"So _show me_," he hissed back, pulling Kallus into a kiss just as demanding as any he had pressed upon him before. "I've had it up to _here_ with this 'you know nothing' nonsense. If I don't know, then _show me._"

His look as he gazed up at Zeb was no less unhinged, but there was that same spark there the half-Fey knew meant his challenge had been accepted. "As you wish, Garazeb," he said in a harsh voice before pulling Zeb down into a hard kiss. Zeb immediately felt the sharp press of fangs inside his own mouth.

With every press of Alex's skin against his, a new change was wrought. The changes were brief, leaving only vague impressions upon the fabric of reality, but Zeb began to see what his lover was talking about. He noted the brief ripple of fur along his skin, the feel of larger, more powerful hands and feet. Whenever he gripped Alex, he could feel the faint prick of claws unsheathing, threatening to tear at that pale skin. When he groaned low in his chest, he felt the sheer _power_ of it like the rumbling of distant thunder.

It was true. He was _more._ He was _so much more._

"You are _magnificent_, my knight," Alex exalted against him. "_Truly_ magnificent."

"Ungh..._Alex_," he moaned in response, voice both enthralled and so, _so_ powerful. There was very little clothing left clinging to either of them at this point. Even the ties that kept their long hair in check had been lost somewhere throughout it all. Whenever a fresh change could flow across him, he would glance down, seeing his dark skin ripple into a shade of purple that was both strange and familiar at the same time...like something he had seen in a dream.

He was sure that, in some way, Alex had thought he might be doing something cruel by showing him this. But all he could taste in their kisses now was a spark of wonder, his own amazement, Alex's awe at the beauty of him. It was all so unfamiliar, but at the same time...it felt _right._

Alex had given him that. And even though he knew it was impossible, all he could think about in that moment was trying to find _some way_ of keeping him here with him. And even for that, his strange, shifting, wondrous new body offered him a solution. Albeit an unorthodox one.

They both gasped in quiet shock upon feeling a different sort of change between them. Something more real than any that had come thus far. Zeb didn't at first know what to make of it when he felt his cock shifting, pulling inside of him to form an entirely different set of parts.

"_Oh,_" Alex breathed in amazement, uncertain at first, but with growing interest as he reached a hand down to run his fingers over what was now between Zeb's legs. "I suppose I- take that as invitation. You _really_ want me inside you."

Zeb was past words at this point, his thighs dripping wet from the previous build of his arousal. His voice came out as a stuttered cry when Alex pressed two fingers inside of him, pumping experimentally. When he received nothing but enthusiasm in response, he lifted his thumb up to rub against the half-Fey's clit.

That single touch was enough to send a lightning bolt of sensation through his body, causing him to cry out as he climaxed without warning, spilling slick fluid all over his lover's hand. Alex managed to make him come three more times just like that. Just with his hand, each orgasm deeper than the one before, until at last he had him begging.

"Gods...Alex, fuck me. Just _fuck me!_ I want that prick inside me _now!_" he demanded, half-collapsed against his lover, legs trembling with the aftershocks of climax.

"All right, all right," Alex said as he helped him lie down among the roses, a reversal of their positions seven years ago. "As my- prince...commands."

Then he was leaning down close to Zeb, a knee between his legs as he pressed his lips to his ear once more, whispering the last of the earlier verse to him.

_When with moss and honey_

_She tips her bending brier,_

_And half unfolds her glowing heart,_

_She sets the world on fire._

Then Alex was entering him, pressing slowly to make certain he didn't hurt him. And unlike the animalistic intensity of their earlier couplings, this was slow. Alex was deliberate in every move he made, seeing to Zeb's pleasure with each thrust, and as they moved together on their bed of roses, nearer and nearer, tighter and tighter, Zeb slowly wrapped his legs around Alex's waist, drawing him as deep inside him as he could possibly go.

_Come inside me,_ he urged silently, clinging tightly to his lover. _Fill me...let me carry you with me._

Zeb had no cries left in him when Alex brought him to his final release. All he could really manage was to let his head fall back against the pillow of roses beneath it, mouth falling open in a silent scream as his body gave over to pleasure. He was only half-aware when Alex finally reached his own climax, spilling himself deep inside Zeb's body. Distantly, he imagined he could feel the pulse of that seed as it filled him...filled the womb that, until half an hour ago, he hadn't had.

Alex finished by pressing a tender kiss to his lips, which Zeb only too happily reciprocated. However, both exhausted by the intensity of the carnal effort, it didn't take the pair long to fall into a deep sleep, holding tightly to and within each other.

XxX

**And he has took her by the hand, took her by the sleeve,**

**And he has laid his lady down, among the roses green.**

**And he has took her by the arm, took her by the hem,**

**And he has laid his lady down, among the roses red.**

XxX

Zeb drew in a deep breath upon waking. The scent of roses and animal musk hung heavy in his nose. Drawing even more of his awareness to him, he found himself lying naked on a blanket of wild roses, and in the space between moments, he began to recall why that was.

"Alex," he called out, voice still exhausted from the thorough working his body had had. But when he tried to sit up, there was suddenly a wolf at his side.

It was the same tawny wolf he had seen earlier, he knew, golden and majestic in the dwindling moonlight. It was his Alex, shifted into some sort of wild shape. The connection was only confirmed further when the great animal bent its dripping maw down to nuzzle gently at his cheek.

"Please," he begged, hands reaching up to grip at the wolf's luscious golden-brown fur. "Please don't leave me. I can't- _take it_. _Please_."

But there was nothing he could do. Nothing to stop the loss from happening a second time. When the wolf pressed its broad nose to his forehead, Zeb felt a powerful exhaustion move through his body, an enchanted sleep quickly descending upon him. Hands slipping from the wolf's fur, he collapsed soundlessly back upon the bed of roses.

"Alex," he whispered against the wolf's jaw, pressing one last desperate kiss to the warm fur. "I love you. I love you. _I love you..._"

He kept whispering the words until he no longer could. Until sleep had thoroughly claimed him and the only thing he had left of his lover was a soothing, deadly whisper, the words lingering in his heart and mind.

_Zeb...my eternal beloved...you cannot know the things I have done in your name. My sins are beyond counting...and each evil would break your tender heart. Know only that everything I do, everything I have done or will do in the future, no matter how trivial or how cruel...know that I do it to protect __**you**__._

XxX

As the deep black of May Eve gradually faded into the grey light of dawn, a cloaked figure appeared out of that blackness, standing upon a cliff overlooking the forest road the previous night's raid had taken place on. Unmoving, the figure stood glaring hate down upon the tiny band of knights and not-quite-knights that had thwarted her efforts, standing thusly until a tawny wolf emerged from the twilit strand of forest at her back. By the time the wolf reached her side, it had shifted into a human shape – a man with golden hair, a powerful body, and an expression so cold and hard it could've frozen a raging river in the blistering heat of summer.

"So, _King's Shadow_, did you enjoy having your precious slut again after all this time?" Asajj Ventress asked with a sneer, not looking over at the human. "I can't imagine that _whore's son_ is good for much besides serving as your cock sleeve."

With barely more than a flicker of movement, the king's assassin had laid a cold iron short sword across her throat, its keen edge threatening to tear through her pale flesh.

"The next time you insult him, my bolt will go through your heart, pitiful wretch," he warned her in a quiet snarl, the howl of the wolf that was in him dancing upon the uppermost tones of his voice. "Garazeb Orrelios is mine and mine alone, to fuck or destroy or spare as _I_ see fit. What I choose to do with him is no being's business but my own. _That_ is the promise of the _king_, Lady Knight, and you would do well to remember it."

Ventress laughed quietly, mockingly, being careful of her defenseless neck against his blade. "Oh, I _remember_ our king's vow to you, little human child, but in truth, Kallus, your anger _excites_ me. I think I would greatly enjoy having you _fuck me_ with that blade upon my throat. It's so rare anymore to find a partner who's in any way exciting. Perhaps I will request the _use_ of you from His Majesty for tomorrow's entertainment."

"Your play will have to keep until later, My Lady. I come to collect your report. My Lord Thrawn will want an explanation for your _failure_ this night," he said, slowly withdrawing his blade from her throat.

"We were ambushed by those petty knights," she snapped at him. "My informants put them far from here this night, so they caught me unawares. There is only so much one can do against a green knight in a forest in the full bloom of spring. I would curse the boy with impotence if I could get but a lock of his hair. Then we would see how much his precious maid would want of him."

"The Lady Hera Syndulla is a knight, no different from yourself, or did you forget that as well?" he snapped right back.

"Heh, that green bitch is _nothing_ like me. I would love to see how the little rat fares in a one on one fight to the death. We would see who the true knight is then. Though, I suppose this caravan's failure matters little. The cargo is dead. None of them was the child we needed."

"As usual, Ventress, you are wrong," the assassin took no small amount of pleasure in telling her. "Two of the children were rescued by your _petty knights._ Wren and Bridger. One or both of them may yet prove to be one of the souls Thrawn seeks."

"Well, that is a simple enough question to answer. I will walk into the camp tomorrow night and put the poisoned metal through their hearts myself. Then we will know."

"You will do no such thing. I have my orders from the king himself. He wants the children to enter Zenarab's keep unharmed. He wishes eyes inside the prince's court. It is well protected by Lirakal's power and more and more half-Fey gather to them every day. The Convergence draws near and three souls remain to be gathered. We can no longer afford the leisurely pace of the past. Perhaps one of the souls we need has gathered beneath the banner of this lesser House of Orrelios."

"Two," the faerie knight said with a smug sneer.

"Two?"

"Yes. Two. Only two souls remain. I have found another in Orrelios' band this night."

"You are certain?"

"I ran the warrior through with pure cold iron and he yet lives. If that is not one who is slain and does not die, I do not know what is. This Chirrut must be one of the seven."

"Indeed," Kallus said softly, looking down upon the camp with renewed interest. "Then he will be collected when we know for certain whether either of the children is one of the last two. Tonight was certainly not a total loss. Thrawn will be pleased. Pleased enough, at least, to allow you to live."

"I will require back the use of my hand," she pointed out as he was turning away from her, "if I am to continue serving in the king's name."

She relished the way the human's shoulders stiffened as he stopped mid-motion. She always loved taking the arrogant prick down a few pegs. He knew what was coming. He also knew there was nothing he could do to stop it. Because even though he spoke with the king's voice and wielded his power, he was still the very lowest member of the Moonlit Court. His body was not his own and she _relished_ every moment she was permitted to remind him of that fact.

"Of course, My Lady," he said, voice just as stiff as his shoulders as he turned back to her, something in his eyes going even colder – going almost _dead_. Slowly, he moved toward her. "Give me your hand."

"I will, but first you will kneel before your Lady."

Kallus' eyes went alight with anger at her words. Though he made no move against her, he clearly meant to defy her for as long as she could. "I will _what?_"

"On. Your. _Knees,_" she hissed at him, waiting for him to comply with a knowing leer.

The King's Shadow maintained eye contact as he dropped to his knees before her. With every movement, his amber eyes slowly began to glow red, channeling the king's power. Although the sight did strike a small note of fear in her blood, it also sent a shiver of excitement through her. Already, she could feel herself growing wet with the prospect of asserting her dominance over the proud human. When he was kneeling before her, she reached out her injured hand to him, cupping the side of his face in condescending fingers, running a thumb over his pale cheek.

"Now _heal me_, King's Slut," she ordered, uttering the name she and others only dared use when they _knew_ the king was not listening.

Kallus growled before turning his head to the side, slowly licking and kissing her palm, and with each movement, he gradually wicked away the injury that he himself had given her.

He didn't get rid of it completely, although he was certainly capable of it. He merely returned to her the use of her hand while leaving an ugly scar in place of the wound. It was how the pair of them operated, pushing each other as far as they possibly could without outright attacking each other. She had crossed some unspoken line between them by attempting to murder Orrelios, but she didn't care. All she needed to do to win their private war was stay alive until _after_ the Convergence. Then it would no longer matter.

Kallus attempted to pull away when he had finished his task, but she didn't release him. She tightened her grip on his head, fingers digging harshly into his fine hair.

"You have been a _dreadfully_ unruly child tonight, King's Slut," she scolded him, fingers digging into his scalp until she drew blood, the sharp red of it mixing with the blond of his hair. "I think you will offer _worship_ to your Lady as penance."

"Any being who worships at _your_ altar, o most _honorable_ Lady, is truly the lowliest, _meanest_ creature in all creation," he said to her, eyes glowing all the redder.

"Good. You understand your proper place in this world then," she purred. "I will give that sharp tongue something to accomplish, _human._"

With a simple flick of her wrist, she cast aside the thick layers of her skirts, revealing to the assassin that she wore nothing underneath them. Drawing his face closer to her body, she forced him to inhale the scent of her.

"Let's get a _proper_ cunt in that mouth of yours, Alexsandr."

The delay in her pleasure was worth seeing the spark of pure terror catch fire in those now red eyes. The fact that she _knew_ he'd fucked a pussy all too recently told him everything he needed to know. But before proceeding with his assigned punishment, the King's Shadow glared up at her.

"Before my time is done, witch, I will look down on your corpse and _laugh_."

"As you will, kitten. But until that time, you will _pay your respects_," she snarled quietly, finally burying his face in her sex. Offering up another low growl of anger, the human set to work, licking and biting at the warm flesh now in his mouth.

He was good with his tongue, was Alexsandr Kallus. Both figuratively _and_ literally. As Asajj Ventress stood there with the human's head pressed firmly against her body, enjoying everything he could do to her vulva with his lips and tongue, she gave several pleased groans, hips rolling eagerly against the angry heat of his mouth.

And if, in those few moments just before the rising of the sun, she held him like that for the span of three _years_, pleasuring her with his teeth and tongue, well, who was really going to tell her she couldn't?


	3. Third Night

(A/N) Little more fairy tale. So sorry for the delay. Kalluzeb Appreciation Week took over hardcore for a bit there.

**A Rose Upon a Thorn**

_Chapter 3: Third Night_

_The only three to come away from the caravan alive that night were the two children and the human who had driven their wagon. All of the others perished, either at the hands of the faerie knight's lackeys or by the rage of the green knight. Traumatized by their kidnap and torture, the two children were not a ready source of information for what had happened. So the prince's son and his band brought the human driver back to the prince's keep for interrogation. Not that the man was exactly forthcoming but, as it stood, they were left with little other option._

XxX

"I'll give him this," Cassian said when Zeb and Kanan entered the prisoner's cell near dawn the next night, Kanan leaning heavily against Zeb in his efforts to walk, "he's a tough son of a bitch. A whole night of this and the only thing I can get out of him is his name and some meaningless designation."

"So what is your name?" Zeb asked the man, who was thoroughly secured to an interrogation chair.

"Captain Rex Kamin, _long_ late of Her Majesty's 501st."

"Ask him anything else. Anything you like. That's all he will say," the young man said in frustration. "Who the bloody hells is Her Majesty, Captain Rex Kamin? The last time we had a high queen was more than a hundred years ago. So far as anyone knows, there _is_ no queen in Faerie. Just how long have you been in thrall to them?"

With a despondent look, the supposed captain just shook his head and repeated, "Captain Rex Kamin, _long_ late of Her Majesty's 501st."

"Yes, we know that one," Baze grumbled from where he observed in the corner. "Anything else?"

"Captain Rex Ka-"

"Busted clock, this one," Cassian snapped

"Do you think it's possible he might...he..." Wedge's voice dropped off in the middle of whatever it was he'd been saying. He began to shudder as he glanced toward the cell door. "It...the sun's coming up."

"Hey, Wedge, no!" Cassian protested, moving across the cell toward the other young human, grabbing him by the shoulders. "You can't give in yet. Not yet! What were you saying?"

Wedge blinked several times in desperation, shaking his head, trying to keep it clear.

"I- C- Cassian, it's going. I'm not-"

"No. _Fight it, _dammit!"

But the very next moment, the young man's head lolled back on his shoulders as his eyes rolled back into his head. Then his head slumped forward and he was blinking up at them with dull, sleepy eyes. Smiling vaguely at all of them, he asked in a childlike voice, "How many bags of sugar do you think the moon holds?"

"Dammit! _Dammit!_" Cassian snarled, running a hand through his hair in an effort to avoid throttling Wedge, who wasn't really there anymore. He quickly moved away from the addled young man. Wedge giggled before settling himself down on the stone floor, contenting himself asking questions of the walls and the ceiling. "We won't get him back until nightfall. And he might've actually had something. Damn- _fucking_ -"

"The kid...what's wrong with him?" they all suddenly heard Rex asking.

"Oh, you noticed that, did you?" Cassian returned with a sneer. "That all it takes to get you to talk? Well, one of your _faerie_ masters did that to him, if you have to know. Shall I tell you a story, Captain Rex?" he asked as he began to circle the chair, gesturing from time to time to Wedge. "Once upon a time, a young knight, drunk on wine and the victory of his new-won knighthood, wandered just a bit too close to the Divide by moonlight. There, in the space between breaths, he beheld some sight. Who could now say what, but whatever it was, it was the most beautiful he had ever seen. Against all thought, he followed that beauty into the Divide, and there some faerie made love to him."

"Ah," the captain said in quiet pity. "Moondrunk."

"Tasted starlight on her breasts," Wedge half-sang with an unhinged smile. "Drank the moon between her thighs."

"Yes," Baze bit out, his own voice thick with anger. "One of those wicked little bitches fucked the boy, with no thought to protecting his mind or heart from her power. He only comes back to himself at night."

"But whenever the sun's up, he doesn't have two coherent thoughts to strike together," Cassian hissed. "_That_ is all the care your _masters_ have for humans, and yet you serve them _willingly?_"

"I don't know, Cassian. I'm getting the feeling it's more complicated than that," Kanan said slowly as he surveyed their prisoner.

"How? He is under no enchantment. Both you and Chirrut said so."

"No enchantment, no," Zeb said, his voice low and contemplative as he looked at the captain. The human met his gaze, eyes tracking his wherever they went. "But there's _something_ there. He's not _all_ human. Not anymore." And he knew the difference now, having seen that same uncanny spark in Alex.

"You're Orrelios, aren't you?" the man suddenly asked him. "Son of the Lady Lirakal."

"Yes," Zeb returned, now eyeing the man suspiciously out of the corner of his eye. His experience with denizens of Faerie thus far was that they tended to be disrespectful of his mother. What was this one on about?

"You're the one he talks about, then. The king's assassin. We're not so different, he and I. And for that, son of Orrelios, you have my pity," he said, his gaze heavy with it.

"What are you talkin' about?" Zeb demanded, getting right up in Rex's face, resisting the urge to lift both him and the chair from the floor. "King's assassin? Who's the king's assassin? What the _hells_ are you talkin' about?!"

But Rex said nothing more, simply falling back into his old silence as he stared up at the half-Fey, eyes full of pity and old sorrow.

"Alex?" Zeb whispered, but his voice quickly rose to a loud snarl. "Are you talkin' about Alex? Tell me who the king's assassin is or I'll _rip your fucking head off!_"

"What's going on in here?" the imperious, commanding voice of his mother suddenly entered the cell. Zeb's anger abated, but only enough to allow him to take a single step back from the prisoner. Glancing back over his shoulder, he saw Lirakal Orrelios sweep into the cell. He was taller than his mum now, but that still left her a damn tall woman. A bit more of her Fey wildness shown through as she entered in among them – a hint of fang at her lip, a stronger glow in her eyes, and a general sense of being _more_ than what could be seen with the eye. And now, of course, he understood just _how_ much more there could possibly be.

"We captured one of Ventress' men," he told her. "He'll know something about what they've been doing. I think he might even know something about Alex. He's just not talkin'."

"Rex?" his mother uttered in amazement as she looked on him.

"My Lady," the human said, inclining his head toward her in a gesture of respect. "It is good to see you well, daughter of Orrelios. The Moonlit Court is greatly diminished without your presence."

"Wait, you- you know him?" Zeb asked, glancing between his mother and their captive.

"I do. Rex Kamin _appears_ young, but in truth, he's older even than _I_ am. He's lived for thousands of years...kept alive by the will of the faerie king. Much as I'm sure he longs to tell you everything he knows, he cannot. He is bound by geas to the king's command."

"Geas?" Baze asked. "What sort of geas?"

Lirakal looked at the bound human for a long while before answering, memory and sorrow weighing heavily upon her shoulders. When she finally spoke, it was with eyes closed and arms wrapped tightly around herself.

"I was not- the first of the king's knights to defy his law against lying with humans. Before I was born, there was another – a knight brave and kind and respected by many. His name was Anakin, and he was a son of the House of Skywalker. He was a cunning warrior, and his blood was rich in magic. He kept the king's law well...until his eyes fell on the queen of the human realm."

"Her Majesty...Queen Padme," Rex said, eyes misty with memory.

"Hold up," Cassian interrupted. "Padme as in...the Lost Queen? The last princess of House Amidala?"

"The same. I know the human histories say she vanished...that she died childless, thus leaving the throne to her young sister, Sabe. And of course, in true human fashion, that girl's womb was fought over by the men of the court like a pack of wild dogs even _before_ she came of age. History doesn't tell us who fathered her only son, and how could it when so many had her, but that boy was the progenitor of your father's blood," she said to Zeb. "Cal Organa. The prince who fashioned his own name. Organa...one who blooms from himself."

"Then what _really_ happened to her? Padme, I mean," Kanan asked from where he was now leaning against the cell wall.

"She loved the king's knight just as deeply as he loved her. When his seed took root in her body and she bore him twins, they attempted to defy the king...to make war on him and end his rule."

"Take it that didn't go so well," Zeb said quietly.

"No. The queen was slaughtered...by her own men."

"What?" Kanan whispered in shock.

"Her 501st. Padme did not order her troops into battle against the Fey. Despite her love for the son of Skywalker, even _she_ knew it would've been suicide. She commanded only a legion of volunteers. The king did not even do her the courtesy of declaring another war against the humans. He drove the soldiers of the 501st _mad_. Turned them against their own queen. They tore her to pieces, ripped her children from her arms, and many of them took their own lives when they woke to the horror of what they'd done. Rex is all that remains of their number, cursed to bear out the king's rage."

"But why him?" Zeb asked.

"Because he, too, had a lover," the faerie knight explained in a heavy voice, something in the human's guarded expression breaking at her narration. "A young half-Fey knight who served the queen. The Lady Ahsoka Tano. Skywalker was training her to use her powers and she was fiercely dedicated to them both. When the queen was murdered and her children taken, Lady Tano attempted to free them. She failed. To this day, she remains imprisoned in the king's court. He allows them to be together once every hundred years, but- while he is king, Rex will not earn Ahsoka's freedom until-"

"-until I have bourn out the rage of my brothers one last time," the captive human finished, his words and his expression heavy with the weight of millennia.

"What does that mean?" Baze pressed.

"Who could say? But until such a time, Rex is bound to the king's will, not truly living and unable to die. He is bound by the life of his love to keep the king's secrets. One whisper would mean her death. I'm sure the lot of you can understand the power such a threat would hold," she said, turning and looking around the group of men. Save Cassian, they all bowed their heads in acknowledgement, no doubt in their minds that such a threat to Alex, Hera, or Chirrut would lead any one of them to do any number of terrible things.

"So who's going to tell this king of theirs if he betrays them?" Cassian attempted to push back. "Certainly not any of us. What keeps him from making his own choices?"

Lirakal shook her head at the boy's naivete. "You are very young, Cassian Andor, but you ought know by now that it does not work like that. Rex is bound. He is bound by the most ancient of magics and that power will not be denied blood if it is defied. There is a reason I have never given any of you my former king's name. I am not so foolish as to trust to the blind courage and utter foolishness of your youth. You have _no idea_ of the punishment you would incur for invoking that name on a whim. If he _is_ challenged, he will have fair price in return for the insult. His version of fair price, at least. There is only so much my power can do to defend our home if _his_ power is called upon_."_

"So there's nothing _you_ can do to break his geas then?" Zeb asked his mother.

The diminished faerie shook her head sadly. "Even at full strength, my power is no match for his. Compared with the vast ocean of the faerie king's power, mine is nothing but a thimbleful of water. I could loosen it..._maybe_...but as I said, the ties that bind Rex are older even than I am. It would take time."

"All right, so you can't tell us what this king's up to," Zeb acknowledged. "But how does it betray him to tell us who the king's assassin is?"

Rex shook his head sadly. "What good does it do you to know? There's nothing you can do for him. You can't change his fate. Knowing'll just hurt you more. You were better to leave your love in the past, boy...remember him as he was. You don't _want_ to know what he's become."

Zeb sighed, hand briefly ghosting across his belly. He knew what he suspected, but there was no way he knew of to confirm it. Perhaps he had made a foolish decision in Carterhaugh two nights back, but now...if what he suspected could possibly be true, Alex was _anything_ but in the past.

"He will never- be in the past for me," the half-Fey began slowly. "My love is my yesterday, my today, and my tomorrow. If you- didn't know what had happened to Ahsoka...wouldn't you want to? Even if it'd break your heart...you'd _need_ to know what had happened to her. Wouldn't you?"

The eternally young ancient soldier gave a broken-sounding laugh at his desperate plea, something in that worn expression shattering afresh as he looked at him. "All right, son of Orrelios, but never say I didn't warn you. Seven years ago, the previous King's Shadow met with a human challenger for the honor of serving as the king's assassin. It's not a position that can just be granted on a whim. It must be _passed_...from slayer to slayer. The only way to prove yourself worthy of the title is to _take_ it. The combat was long and bloody, but the human boy won out in the end. He laid the head of Maul at the king's feet, painted the sigils upon his chest with the dead Shadow's blood, and he took his place at the king's side. He has remained there ever since, completely loyal to the high king's will, killing as he wishes.

"That human's name...is Alexsandr Kallus."

XxX

"Why do you wear a blindfold?"

Chirrut chuckled quietly at the child's question. Despite everything the little one had been through, despite being kidnapped and tortured, he was still just a boy, and little boys tended to be curious about such things.

"Ezra!" the older child scolded him. "You can't just ask people things like that!"

"But how else am I gonna find out if I don't ask? I wanna know!" he insisted petulantly.

"The child is right, you know," Chirrut told Ezra's self-appointed guardian, Sabine. "Knowledge must be sought."

"But...it's rude, isn't it?" Sabine asked, her voice uncertain. "You'll have to excuse him. He's only six."

"No need for excuses, young ones. The answer is simple enough. I wear a blindfold because I have no eyes. The sight of such a blank face tends to unnerve most people."

The blind warrior smiled knowingly into the ensuing silence, waiting for the moment when Ezra finally broke it with a quickly muttered, "Can I see?"

"_Ezra!_"

Chirrut just laughed in response, offering no admonishment as he untied the blindfold, allowing the strip of cloth to fall into his lap. He was no more surprised when he felt small fingers reach out to press against the bare stretch of skin where eyes would be in a human. It was one of his stranger Fey characteristics, not having eyes. The one that tended to raise more questions than he typically cared to answer. So he didn't. But he didn't mind answering them for the little boy. _His_ questions were asked out of curiosity, a true desire to know; not out of fear or ignorance.

"But...how do you see? How do you look to walk around?" Ezra asked him, sounding almost worried.

"I cannot see. I have no eyes, after all. I never have. This is the way I was born. But there are senses other than sight, Ezra," he said, reaching out to lay a hand on the boy's shoulder. "After all, how did I 'see' to know where your shoulder was?"

"How?"

Laying his staff to the side on his cot, he tapped at his ear, then at Ezra's. "I can hear you. That tells me more than you might think. Perhaps you ought to give it a try."

"How?" the boy asked again.

Picking up his blindfold and tying it carefully around Ezra's own eyes, he slowly spun the boy about. "All right, Ezra, I want you to listen carefully, then walk toward the first sound you hear."

"O- okay."

Ezra stood still for several moments, the infirmary almost eerily silent, neither of its other two occupants making any noise. Hera had set Bodhi the task of minding the two children while she found food for all of them, and he was taking to the task with gusto. But for now, it seemed that both he and Sabine wanted to see what Ezra might do.

The sound in question wound up being Hera as she entered the room, the sound of a basket bumping against her leg indicating to Chirrut that she'd been successful in her quest, and the sound of Chopper's caw at her shoulder telling that the bird had already taken his dues.

"Breakfast!" she called out. Ezra immediately started moving toward her. "Oh? What's this?" she asked with a light laugh as the little boy fumbled his way over to her.

"Bit of an impromptu lesson," Chirrut answered with a chuckle of his own. He heard Ezra half crash into the woman, arms quickly wrapping around her legs to keep himself from falling. Hera laughed as she removed the blindfold.

"And was the lesson a success?" she asked.

"I found you!" Ezra declared, pleased with himself.

"Rousing success, I would say."

"Think you could do me a favor and take Chirrut his breakfast?" Hera asked the little boy, who agreed enthusiastically. In another few moments, Chirrut found his blindfold being laid back in his lap, along with the scent of fresh bread and a hint of apple filling his nose. This was followed by the feel of a warm loaf being pressed into his hands and an apple being laid beside the blindfold.

"Do you understand, little one?"

"Ah fink so," the six-year-old answered through a mouthful of apple. "You can see stuff wiff fings 'sides yo' eyes."

"Something like that, yes," the blind warrior said before biting into the fresh-baked loaf of bread. In truth, his own senses were a bit more complex than that, but it was a good starting point to learn from. And he could tell that the boy had a long ways yet to go.

"Well, that's Chirrut all over. A lesson before breakfast, lunch, and dinner," Hera said as she carried the basket over to Sabine and Bodhi.

"Miss Hera?" the girl started to ask. "Is there anything _I_ can help with?"

"You don't need to help at all, Sabine. You'll be here until your wounds heal a little better. I just want you to focus on healing right now."

"But I- I should be earning our keep...shouldn't I?"

"I promise you, dear heart, you don't need to worry about a thing. If you end up staying with us, things like that can come later. But for now, you and Ezra are our guests. _We'll_ take care of _you_ until you're feeling better."

"Oh. I...okay."

"But if you'd like something to keep yourself occupied in the meantime, I can give you that."

"Yeah?" Sabine asked, immediately perking up.

"I'm sure Bodhi's worn out from this latest round of healing. He can only do so much at once, after all. We have an audience with Prince Orrelios later today and I'm sure he'd like to freshen up a bit. You can help him rebraid his hair if you'd like."

Chirrut felt excitement radiating off of the girl like rays of sunshine. Turning to Bodhi for permission, she asked him, "C- can I?"

"Of course, little one," the young man agreed with a warm laugh of his own. It wasn't long before Chirrut heard the sound of a brush being run through Bodhi's long hair.

"So how are you holding up, old owl?" Hera asked as she came to sit beside him on his cot, beginning to munch on an apple herself.

"Just fine, really. I know the healers wanted to keep me here another day to be certain, but I truly don't think it will be necessary. The wound seems to have mostly healed."

"And that of itself is something worth noting. You- really ought to be dead now," she said, voice heavy with both exhaustion and relief.

"That is what people keep telling me, and yet they always seem to be wrong."

"And you've honestly never been hit with cold iron before?"

"Never," he said, voice dropping lower to avoid rousing the interest of the other three, hoping to leave them to their own devices. A sense of peace pervaded the three that he knew couldn't last forever and he wanted them to have as much time as they could. "But I've no more answer to offer than anyone else. I have experienced my fair share of oddities in my time, but this is something entirely new to me."

It didn't bode well, he knew. Not that he wasn't pleased to still be drawing breath or anything of that nature. It was just- a power like this...he had never known its like before. The fact that he had been killed, but still lived...it spoke to something off in the very dimensions of reality itself. It was a danger, both to himself and to everyone he cared for, but as of this moment, he had no help for it. He would just have to wait.

"In the meantime, though," he continued, a different sort of warning sparking at the edges of his awareness, "I believe someone who is _actually_ in need of a healer's aid is on the approach."

"Hmm?" Hera started, shifting to look toward the entrance to the infirmary. Almost immediately, Zeb's heavy footfalls entered the space, along with the whisper of booted feet being dragged over stone. Hera was quickly back on her feet. "My Gods, what happened?"

"Nothing," Kanan's weakened voice answered. "I just- couldn't quite make it all the way back on my own. Zeb helped me out."

Hera groaned in frustration. "You know, I told you not to go down there for a reason. I hope what you learned was worth risking your health over."

"That remains to be seen," Baze's voice joined in, and while Zeb helped Kanan over to a cot, Chirrut's husband came to sit beside him on his.

"What _did_ you learn, then?" Chirrut asked him, breaking off a hunk of his loaf and passing it to the larger man.

"Lady Orrelios knows the man. He's under some kind of geas of the Fey king's, so we won't get anything from him. She's going to try and work through it, but it will take time. Also seems that Zeb's young man is among the faeries."

"Ah. The Alexsandr we've heard so much about."

"The same. The story just keeps getting more and more complicated."

"And will continue to do so, I have little doubt. You can tell me all about it later. For now, I would like to enjoy my breakfast in relative peace."

"You are all right?" his husband asked in his typical gruff voice, but the tone was undercut by the gentle hand he rested on his knee.

"Perfectly fine. I simply feel that...we are very near an edge. I couldn't say what, but...it seems to me we ought to take moments like this where we may," he said, smiling faintly as he listened to Hera fuss over Kanan and Zeb, listened to Ezra begin to ask the green knight about his trick with the trees, and listened to Sabine and Bodhi laugh together as she braided his hair, talking about finding feathers and beads to add in.

It was a tender moment. Close as they all were, it was the sort of thing that happened rarely in their lives, so the blind warrior sat basking in it, with the taste of warm food in his mouth and laughter in the air and his love by his side.

They would all need this later.

XxX

_A fair few months passed in this manner, with the two young half-Fey slowly becoming part of the odd little band. None of them could quite seem to give the two little scamps up._

_In all that time, the former knight worked to break the faerie king's geas on her old friend, or at least to loosen it somewhat. Though she put all of her efforts and all of her arts to the task, she was able to pull very little from the ancient soldier, willing as he was. It was even his preference to remain locked in his cell, though they would've put him up properly. After all, both he and the lady knight knew just how much harm their king was capable of causing, even from a distance._

_The prince's son noticed changes to him__**self**_ _in those months, as well. He tired more easily, and foods that had once held great appeal for him seemed to lose their flavor almost overnight. Sometimes he couldn't even keep what little he __**had**_ _eaten down._

_The rest of his companions took no notice of his symptoms, but if his mother was able to pull nothing from her friend, she could at least read the signs in her own child._

XxX

**There's four and twenty ladies fair, sewing at the silk,**

**And Janet goes among them all, her face as pale as milk**

**And four and twenty gentlemen, playing at the chess**

**And Janet goes among them all as green as any glass**

**And up then spoke her father, he spoke it meek and mild,**

**"Oh alas, my daughter, I fear you go with child.**

**And is it to a man of might, or to a man of means?**

**Oh who among my gentlemen shall give the babe his name?"**

XxX

"Why does it hurt?"

Zeb's attention was drawn away from his mother's latest working by Ezra's small voice. Looking back at the entrance to Rex's cell, he saw the little boy standing there looking in.

"Ezra, you _know_ you're not supposed to be down here," Kanan scolded him, though his tone was gentle as he went to pick the boy up.

"I know...but Sabine didn't know...so I wanted to ask. The bad iron...why does it hurt?" he asked again, gaze flicking down to the ugly scars that encircled his wrists. No matter how well they had been cared for, they had all known the wounds wouldn't properly heal. He and Sabine would always bear the scars from their captivity. Zeb would've fully expected his own hands to be scarred before...before his encounter with Alex.

"Cold iron does not know us," Lirakal said before the green knight could carry the child away. Even with thick leather gloves protecting her hands, she was careful in laying down the rough ingots of the stuff she was setting up around Rex.

"What does- that mean?" Ezra pressed, looking over Kanan's shoulder.

"The ore was ripped from deep inside the earth, with no care or respect for the connection between the two. That connection is polluted further with processing. The humans consider the iron pure then, but all they've really done is stripped it of its identity. So utterly changed as that...the metal is incompatible with beings with stronger ties to spirit...to magic...so its touch destroys that which it is incapable of recognizing."

"Well...if it doesn't know us...couldn't we just introduce ourselves?" the little boy asked. "That's what my mom said you do when you don't know somebody."

This drew small, pained laughs from all of them. If _only_ such a thing were that simple.

"Well...if you ever learn to speak such a bitter, broken language as what cold iron must speak, young one, you let me know. I will gladly introduce myself," Lirakal said before turning her attention back to the working.

"I should take him back up to the others. Will you be all right down here?" Kanan asked Zeb as he shifted Ezra further up in his arms, being careful of the scar on his side, still tender even after three months.

"I'll be fine. Don't expect much to happen anyway. I'd just- like to be here if it does, y'know?" Zeb returned, offering up a little smile for his friend and their young charge. Kanan nodded once before heading out, allowing Ezra to wave goodbye as he headed away down the corridor. Zeb waved back before turning his focus back to what his mother was doing.

Having finished her set up, Lirakal reached over the circle she'd created, cupping the side of Rex's face in her hand while she pressed a thumb to his forehead.

"I seek the true spirit that dwells within this bond," she intoned, her voice commanding, but also with the guiding tone Zeb had known when he was a child. "Speak to me, soldier of eons gone by. Relate to me your heart free of your bonds. Rex...please."

For a long while, nothing happened. But just as Rex was shaking his head to indicate that it wasn't working, his eyelids began to flutter rapidly. Then, upon the last blink, those eyes shifted from their regular brown color over into blue. It was a different pair of eyes entirely looking out from the captain's face.

"Li...Lirakal?" a woman's voice issued from the human male's lips.

"Lady Tano?" Zeb's mother whispered in amazement, barely remembering to keep her thumb pressed to Rex's forehead.

"Yes. I had- hoped Rex might be able to reach you. Have care, Lady. This connection is none too strong."

"What can you tell me?" Lirakal pressed.

"I can tell you that the high king plans to destroy the Divide...and to separate our realm from the Realm of Mists for all of time."

Zeb felt his heart grow cold with fear at the old knight's words. If the two realms could be separated...permanently...on which side did that leave Alex?

"How? How can such a thing be done? Our worlds have always been joined."

"Perhaps. Perhaps not. There's no way to know what the original birth of these realms was like. But the fact remains that the king has discovered a way to sever them from each other. He began to learn the way long ago...when I was lead to my execution. I was beheaded with an axe of cold iron...and I did not die."

For an instant, Rex's eyes flickered again, shifting between blue and brown as they widened in horror.

"Ah- soka," the captain choked out in horror, but within moments, Ahsoka's blue eyes had reasserted themselves.

"Calm, Rex," the knight's voice soothed. "I need you- to keep calm now, my love. You will hear many things you don't like this night, but they _must_ be said."

"But- didn't he know about that?" Zeb stepped in to ask. "If he was there...didn't he know you survived being executed?"

"You are Garazeb?" Ahsoka asked.

"Yes."

"My son," Lirakal introduced faintly.

"Then you will hear all of this, as well. And no...he did not know. No one knew. They didn't know because the king erased the event from the minds of his people. That kind of knowledge was much too powerful for him to have widely known. Because it wasn't just me. He attempted to have the twins executed that day, as well...and neither of them perished. So the moment was undone, and we were said to be kept as prisoners of the court...kept alive as punishment for the soul of Anakin."

"But of course His _Majesty_ would've wanted to understand the cause," Lirakal spat out.

"Yes. He discovered seven weak points in the fabric that makes up the Divide. And when such a point is sown with the soul of one who is like me...like Luke and Leia...one who is slain and does not die...the balance on which the Divide rests is further polluted. Fully sown, the king could bend the very nature of the Divide to his will; and he means to seal it off."

"Sown with a soul...what exactly does that mean?" his mother asked.

"Woven into the fabric of the Divide...to remain a part of it for all of time."

At this, Rex's eyes flickered again, back to their normal brown as his bound hands clenched into fists.

"Thr- he...he was never going to just let you go...was he," the captain said, literal eons of despair breaking in his eyes before they flickered back to blue.

"No," was the only answer the imprisoned knight gave, her voice thick with the agony such a secret must surely have caused her.

"Mum," Zeb spoke up then, realizing. "Chirrut. That wound he took during the fight with Ventress...it _should've killed him_."

"One who is slain and does not die," the former knight said quietly.

"Then this Chirrut must be one of the seven the king needs," Ahsoka said.

"How many does he have?" Lirakal pressed.

"The twins and myself, plus a young woman who was brought in a few years back. Jyn. With your Chirrut, that leaves only two to be identified."

"So how does the king identify them?" Zeb asked.

"The only way you could. By killing half-Fey and seeing which ones don't die. These souls can only be born among the half-Fey, after all...children of both worlds."

"The children," his mother whispered in quiet horror. "That's why he's been taking them."

"Sabine and Ezra. It could even be them."

"Or _you_," his mother pointed out. "It could be almost any one of you."

"What- what's Alex's role in all this?" Zeb found himself asking before he could stop. "Do you know? Why did the king want him?"

"I'm afraid I don't know. What I know from Kallus himself is that...he struck a bargain with the king to save someone he loves."

"Oh, _Gods_..."

_Red eyes...staring intently out of an impassive blue face..._

_"Ah, so you have awakened. Good. Let us begin."_

"No..."

_"After all, you made me a promise, little one. And promises must be kept."_

_"I didn't know. I- I didn't __**know!**__"_

_Alex...standing in front of him...breaking the power those eyes had held..._

_"__**Wait!**_ _Take me instead."_

"Zeb!"

"_NO!_" he cried out, screaming for reasons he couldn't understand.

"ZEB!" his mother's voice finally broke through to him, and when he came to, he found he'd backed up against the bars of the cell, vestiges of horror still clinging from whatever scrap of memory he'd experienced.

"I...I..." he tried and failed to speak, looking helplessly at his mother. Almost without thought, he let a hand drift to his middle.

He was doing that a lot.

Unfortunately, in his moment of distraction, the connection with Ahsoka had been lost. Seeing he was mostly all right, Lirakal had turned her attention back to Rex, but his eyes had gone brown once more.

"Ahsoka? Ahsoka!" his mother pressed, trying to get her back, but the captain just went slack beneath her grip.

"She's gone," he choked out, eyes squeezing shut. "She's gone."

If Rex and his mother kept speaking, Zeb wasn't aware of it. He slipped out of the cell, heading he wasn't really sure where, hand continuing to rub absently at his midsection.

_Alex...what did you do?_ he wondered, not for the first time. _What did __**I**_ _do?_

"I don't know. I just don't _know_," he hissed.

"What don't you know?" he heard his mother's voice close behind. He didn't turn to face her, just continued his absent stroking.

"Something happened. I don't know what, but _something happened_ out there that night. I don't know how any of this is connected, but it's _got_ to be. I just-"

His mother silenced him with a careful hand on his shoulder, her thumb beginning to rub soothing circles after a time. "I know I've told you- not to look for him...that there's no hope that way. I know the realm of my birth much better than you ever will, I think...and I _know_ what they are capable of. But I also know that you wouldn't be _you_ if you ever gave up on someone you love...so I cannot stop you. But there are other things I can question your judgement on."

"What do you mean?" he asked, finally turning to look at her. She slowly reached a hand up to cup his face in her palm, looking into his eyes for a long moment before allowing that hand to fall to his belly, resting on top of the hand he already had there.

"Just because no one else can see it, did you think I could not?" she asked him gently. "Did you think I could not smell the scent of breeding on my own child?"

His eyes widened as they looked into hers. "Then- it's- I'm really..."

"With child? Yes. Nearing four months would be my guess. You'll start to feel the little one move soon. And it- it was Alex-" she started to ask.

"Yes. I haven't been with anyone _since_ him. But you...this doesn't seem strange to you?" he asked her, chief among the reasons why he hadn't dared to breathe even a whisper of this possibility. Human men, after all, couldn't carry children.

"Not remotely. In the world you and I were born in, this is perfectly normal. To a faerie, physical form is an act of will. That form can be altered based upon the shape of one's will. I imagine Alex...brought that out in you...when he lay with you."

"So why is it you'd question my judgement?" he asked her, not forgetting how it was she'd begun this conversation.

"If Alex has been...in thrall...to the king this entire time, I would fear he is not the man that you knew...that you _loved_. And if he belongs to the man I once called majesty, then he acts according to his king's will. He would have little trouble using you for his own ends. If that includes manipulating your feelings for him, getting a child on you...I'm sure that would mean very little to the person he is now."

"I don't believe that!" Zeb snarled as he pulled away from her.

"Zeb, I understand you want to believe he's still your Alex, but for your own safety-"

"You don't understand, Mum," he ground out, glaring at her. "You _weren't there_. You didn't see the look in his eyes. I'm sure he wanted me to _believe_ there was nothin' left of the man I love, but it's just _not true._ Alex is still in there somewhere."

His mother's countenance was nothing but quiet, despairing agony as she looked at him. "And I _want_ to believe in the two of you more than I can hope to say, but...nothing involving my people is ever completely what it seems. If you let yourself be pulled in by this King's Shadow...you will regret it forever...and forever is a long time to one with even a _drop_ of faerie blood."

Zeb gave a long sigh before answering, knowing he was not going to tell her anything she actually wanted to hear, but that needed saying, just the same.

"Mum...I know you're worried, and I can't blame you. But I can't turn my back on him. I searched seven years to find him. I can't just give him up. I have to _try._"

There was something painful in watching Lirakal Orrelios steel herself, in watching her nod as her eyes grew bright with tears.

"I know. I understand. But could you promise me at least one thing moving forward?"

"I can try," he said, knowing better than to promise before he knew.

"Don't go to him."

"What...what do you mean?"

"I mean if he calls you to him. If he calls on you to leave the safety of this keep, don't go. Promise me that."

Again, he sighed, pulling his mother into a hug. "I could say that...but I think we'd both know I could never mean it. All I can really say is that I'll try."

For a moment, her hold on him tightened, as if she really might not let him go. But, ultimately, she did release him, briefly holding his face between her hands before stepping back.

"Well...for your sake...and hers...I hope you're right."

"_Her?_" Zeb whispered in amazement as he looked at his mother, who nodded, unable to keep herself from smiling just a little as his hands drifted to his barely rounded middle.

"I need to speak with your father now. Tell the others what we've learned and we will hold council tonight."

"Right," he said, nodding faintly as she left him alone in the corridor with his thoughts. Kanan, Baze, Cassian, and Wedge might need time to adjust to the idea, but Hera, Chirrut, and Bodhi would certainly be excited over the whole prospect. Her...a little girl...his daughter..._Alex's_ daughter...

_Family's gettin' bigger all the time. Now we just need the last piece of it back._

XxX

Ahsoka was pulled from her connection to Rex rather violently, her mind forced back into the gloomy, shrouded mould of her prison. And she knew why that was almost immediately.

"It seems your precious captain has been breaking his geas," the high king of Faerie said as he entered her chamber, flanked by his assassin and top general, Fenn Rau. "For such an act of defiance, my Lady Knight, I fear I will have to _punish_ him."

"You will do no such thing, _Thrawn_," she warned him. "Rex broke no vow and well you know it. It was I who spoke through him."

"Only _too_ well do I know it, Lady Tano," the king said with a mildly irritated look. "I would've killed your human long ago if not for the promise you got from me."

"Only too well do I know _that_," the half-Fey knight said to her captor, her expression carefully guarded as he began to circle her. All the while, Kallus and Rau stood guard at the door.

"Still, even if I cannot strike him down for the breaking of the geas, Captain Kamin _will_ have to suffer in his turn for _your actions_, and I believe that will be punishment enough for you, my Lady. It is unfortunate, but it does not appear the two of you will be having the last night together that would have been your right."

"That will matter little if _my actions_ prevent the fruition of your schemes, my most High King Thrawn," she said, remaining still as he circled her like prey, merely deciding upon the angle to come in for the kill. When he came back to face her, it was with his eyes closed and the corners of his lips turned upward in the most infinitesimal of smiles.

"Then I suppose I must grieve to inform you that you are already too late, my Lady Tano. For I have this day identified the seventh soul. All that remains is to await the proper moment to harvest it."

Though she continued to keep her face carefully blank as the king surveyed her, Ahsoka couldn't deny the drop of pure _fear_ that flowed down her spine. If this proved true, there might not be enough time for Lirakal and the others to act on her information. Her time really might be up. She could only hope the time for the seventh soul to be harvested would be enough.

"It seems I have been too generous with you, Lady Ahsoka Tano. Out of respect for the great man your master once was, I have allowed you the freedom of consciousness all this time, but it seems that may no longer be. If you insist on causing trouble when we are this close to our final goal, I can no longer allow this. General Rau, you shall escort Lady Tano to a repose chamber for cold sleep."

"Yes, my King," the general acknowledged, coming to bind Ahsoka's hands.

"And Kallus, you will return to the human realm to prepare for my arrival. When the time is right, we will claim the blind warrior and the child."

"Yes, my King," the former knight acknowledged as well, drawing the hood of his cloak up in preparation for a journey.

"He hasn't forgotten, Alexsandr," Ahsoka said to the human as Rau began to lead her from the room.

Kallus said nothing in response to her words and she could no longer see his expression as the voluminous hood closed over his face, but she _could_ see the way his shoulders tensed just a hair at them.

"He _has not_ forgotten and he bears the hope of your tomorrow within him."

The hood shifted minimally, as if the person within had shifted his head...as if looking away from something he couldn't bear.

"Then he is a fool."

XxX

**"Oh Father, if I go with child, this much to you I tell:**

**There's none among your gentlemen that I would treat so well.**

**And Father, if I go with child, myself shall bear the blame:**

**There's none among your gentlemen shall give the babe his name.**

**For though my love were a mortal man and not of elfin bright,**

**I'd not forsake my own true love for any lesser knight."**

XxX

Zeb couldn't say how late it was when he was awakened from a dead sleep. His normally dark chambers were filled with pale, silvery moonlight. But as he started to search the eerily well-lit room for any sign of a disturbance, he began to realize what it might've been that had awakened him.

He felt movement.

It was little more than the tiniest of flutters inside of him, but it wasn't like anything he'd ever felt before.

"Is...is that you...little girl?" he found himself asking before he could stop, a hand shifting to his belly. He was met with the same pleasant flutter of movement.

He had been right in his estimates over what his companions would feel upon the revelation of his pregnancy – immediate and intense joy from Hera, Chirrut, and Bodhi, with similar happiness from the rest of the men after a slight adjustment period. They were all excited to see the family growing, excited to meet the baby girl. Even Ezra and Sabine were excited by the notion of having a baby sister.

Now they just had to wait.

"Heh, hope you don't keep me up _too_ much, love," he said with a small laugh as he stroked the little swell. "We're gonna need all the rest we can get."

He might've said more, might've kept talking to his daughter, but that his attention was suddenly captured by a voice on the wind, calling to him...singing...

_Come to me._

"Alex?" he whispered, half in a trance, though there was no doubt in his mind just who that voice belonged to.

_Come to me, my love._

Rising from his bed as if compelled, he drifted slowly toward the window, feeling and hearing the untamed song of the moonlight spilling onto him as he looked out into the night. Gaze drawn by a force he couldn't explain, he looked to the boundaries of the forest, and there, standing just within the treeline, was the striking tawny wolf from all those months ago.

"Alex," he whispered again, heart breaking and soaring all at once. "Wha- what are you doing here?"

_Come to me,_ that same steel and silk voice called to him, the pull even stronger. Even across the distance, the wolf's amber eyes were somehow fixed to his. _Zeb...my darling...come._

"I- I _can't_," he tried to protest, the reason _why_ only the faintest of flickers at the back of his mind. "I...I promised Mum..."

_You __**will**_ _come to me, Garazeb_, his lover's will pressed down upon him, still tender, but _so_ harsh. His body and soul thrilled to the call of the King's Shadow and, almost before he was aware of it, he'd begun to move, the compulsion barely allowing him the time to pull a cloak on.

If he could've seen himself in that moment, he would've comprehended the strangeness of it all. He would've seen himself moving through the castle as silently as a shadow, just as concealed beneath the sudden and impossible blackness of his cloak. He would've seen the blank stare on his own face, but also the intense desperation in his now glowing eyes. He would've seen the way he passed unseen by every inhabitant still awake within the castle, slipped unnoticed by the extra sentries his mother had set, and ultimately out of the castle altogether. But he was aware of none of it. The only thing in his head was Alex...the sound of his voice...the scent of him on the air...the remembered taste of him...all was Alex.

The wolf was long gone by the time he reached the trees, but that didn't matter. He could still _feel_ him. He was lost to the enchantment that had descended over his mind, and he was easily able to follow that haunting, mesmerizing call across distances...until he came at last to the same rose-carpeted clearing in the silvered-dark depths of Carterhaugh.

And, just as he knew he would be, Alex was there waiting for him, a dark hood slipping down to reveal his pale, golden face as Zeb approached him.

"Zeb...oh, my love," the assassin began, something in his expression torn as he hurried toward him, reaching out to lower the hood of the half-Fey's cloak and drawing him into a deep, hard kiss. Zeb didn't question any of it. He simply held his beloved tightly in his arms, his grip so hard it might've actually crushed the man were he still fully human.

"I'm sorry to do this to you...to bring you here like this," Alex whispered against his lips as he drew him deeper into the clearing, "but I _had_ to see you."

"No...no," the half-Fey soothed him without understanding what he was trying to soothe, he who was both beloved partner and dangerous seducer. "I love you. I'll always come to you."

Alex shook his head, tears slipping from his eyes even as he smiled, clinging tightly to him. "You shouldn't. You should curse my name...rue the day I was born..."

"_Never,_" Zeb snarled before claiming a second kiss, Alex moaning helplessly beneath him as their mouths opened to each other, desperate to be closer.

Hands dropping from his shoulders, they moved to trace down the muscled sides of his bare torso. He had, after all, been in nothing but the cloak and his sleep pants when he left the castle. But when Alex's hands slipped still lower, gripping at the waist of those pants, the human suddenly tried to jerk back from the intimate embrace.

"No. I can't! I can't do this to you. Not when you're like this. I _can't_-"

"Not when I'm like _what?_" Zeb demanded, no longer being led, but pressing, forcing them both back into the darkness.

"I've called too deeply to you. You aren't _thinking,_" his lover tried to argue, but Zeb didn't give him the chance to pull away. He simply took possession of the human's mouth with his own, feeling the dangerous press of those fangs within his own jaw once more.

"Don't wanna think. Just want _you,_" he growled, the sound produced lower in his chest than even he had thought possible.

Alex cried out against him, the sound both dread and desire as one. That voice said 'no', but still he held the half-Fey tightly against him, their bodies beginning to move frantically together.

"Oh, Gods...oh, _please_," his lover begged him, and Zeb no longer knew if it was a plea to stop or for more. He couldn't _think_. He just _wanted_. And as cloaks were torn away, he felt the sudden crush of roses beneath his back as Alex pressed him up against a vine-draped tree.

When he suddenly lost the feel of his love in his arms, it took him a moment to realize that Alex had dropped to his knees before him, hands fumbling to pull his pants down past his hips, to _reveal_ him, and the man seemed only partly surprised to see that he'd kept the alterations between his legs. Alex was not deterred for long.

He began by pressing sloppy, bitten kisses to Zeb's thighs, tasting the slick that had already flowed down onto the rough skin. But much to the half-Fey's relief, he didn't waste too much time on this foreplay. Before long, that hot tongue was laving at his outer lips, then pushing into them, tentative at first, but quickly gaining confidence.

Before long, Alex was holding Zeb's hips tightly in his hands, head moving with the fierce undulations of his body as he went furiously at the half-Fey's clit with his tongue and teeth. Zeb moaned his approval with every move of his lover's mouth, sometimes coming near to screaming with pleasure as the sensations surged through him.

When he finally reached orgasm, it was with a deeply sated _howl_ as the intense sensation crashed through his body in waves. The moment of climax was so powerful, he almost couldn't manage to keep his feet, held up only by Alex's grip on him. Trembling and exultant, he almost felt as if his skin could catch fire as he watched his lover pull back from him, lips and chin coated sinfully with the fluids from his body.

"Fuck me," Zeb demanded in a darkly calm voice, all other thoughts gone from his mind. The faerie king, the plot to destroy the Divide, the children, his family, his mother, even the little life they had created between them, _all_ of it was gone. The only thing that mattered in that moment was Alex.

And the faerie assassin was only too happy to comply. He was quickly on his feet before the half-Fey knight, and Zeb distantly suspected that his own power may have had a hand in divesting his lover of his boots and pants. Alex was plainly just as eager as he was, but in only a moment, Zeb had their positions switched, with his lover pinned against the tree he'd so lately held him against. Then he was sinking himself down on Alex's body, feeling every sweet inch of penetration as they joined.

His lover groaned in pleasure as he slid fully home, still clinging just as tightly to him. The moment they held like that was brief, but to the pair of them, it felt like a small eternity, holding each other impossibly close...as if they had never been separated. But before long, that same aching _need_ reclaimed both of them, sending them into breathless motion.

Zeb moved against Alex with a kind of desperation, moving himself up and down the hard length of his love, his cries increasing in volume with each new movement inside of him. It wouldn't take much more to bring him to a second climax.

Alex's cries were no less frantic, the sounds half-devoured each time they kissed. At first, it was just his arms wrapped around Zeb's shoulders but, ultimately, he lifted his feet from the ground and wrapped his legs around the half-Fey's hips as well, clinging to him in every way possible while being ridden hard against a tree.

They didn't speak. Not really. Simply let the increasing desperation in their movements and little cries say what they could not. Until, with several frantic thrusts and a stilted cry, Alex was spilling inside him, leading him to spill over the edge only moments behind.

For all the noise they had made leading up to it, their actual moment of release was oddly silent, filled only with the sounds of their breathing as they slowly collapsed beneath the tree, overcome by the fervor of their union. For a long while after, they lay like that, tangled up in that silence and each other, exchanging guilty kisses and caresses. With every breath, they wished, and with every touch, they longed...wished for an eternity and longed for the simplicity of the very first night they had loved each other.

"We can't do this," Alex said sadly, though he made no move to disentangle himself from Zeb. If anything, he enmeshed himself deeper, tangling his fingers in the half-Fey's hair, dragging kisses down his neck. "I can't see you anymore. This- this _has_ to be the last time."

"Alex, _no_," Zeb pleaded as he clung all the tighter to him, despite that he felt just how sullied what they had done was. "You can't-"

"I _must_. Garazeb...beloved...my prince...everything is about to change," he said as he looked up at him, eyes bright with unshed tears.

"More than you know," Zeb tried to tell him, pulling away just a little in order to pull the assassin's hand down to the slight swell of his naked belly, half-willing the tiny life cradled between them to move.

And she did. The same flutter of movement that had awakened him earlier harkened to her father's touch, drawing a look of utter _shock_ to the assassin's exhausted face. When he looked up at the half-Fey, his expression was torn between joy and heartbreak.

"Zeb...you...you're-"

Zeb nodded, drawing Alex's other hand to his lips to press a kiss to his palm. "She's yours..._ours_."

"_She?_" Alex repeated, several tears escaping and flowing down his face.

"Yes. Our daughter...Alex...you _can't leave_."

Alex shook his head, squeezing his eyes tightly shut against the escape of more tears.

"No. Now I must. I have _no choice_. To protect you _both_...I do what I _have to_ now."

All at once, Alex was gone from him, and the half-Fey found himself bound by vines covered in roses. The vines snaked around his body, binding him tightly, and no matter how hard he struggled, he couldn't seem to get free of them.

"You may as well not struggle, my prince," Alex told him as he moved back into his view, readjusting his clothing. "The roses will only obey me. You lost the ability to control them seven years ago...when I took your place as the Rose Knight."

"I- you- _Alex!_" he near-roared, still struggling to get free, and still to no avail.

"You'll be cold," the King's Shadow said softly, realizing. With a simple snap, Zeb's cloak was back in place, even beneath the vines. "Can't have that. You need to take care of yourself. That's _why_ I brought you out here...to keep you safe."

"Alex," he tried again. What was _happening?_

"Don't worry; you'll be set free when it's over. No harm will come to you or the baby," Alex assured him as he came close, his expression achingly tender, but also infinitely sad.

"What do you _mean?_ Alex..." he tried to ask, still struggling against his bonds even though he knew it was useless, "Alex, what have you done?"

Alexsandr Kallus shook his head one last time. His face was free of tears, but it was no less despairing as he took Zeb's chin in his hand. "Zeb...when I beg for forgiveness from you and from the Gods at the end of my life, it will not be for what I _have_ done. It will be for what I am _about_ to do. Goodbye, my love," he said before pressing his lips to Zeb's in a final kiss farewell. And as they kissed, tears slipped free of Zeb's own eyes. What had he done? What had he allowed to happen?

"I love you," Alex whispered against his lips. Then he was gone and Zeb was alone.

"_ALEX!_"

XxX

Both Lirakal and Rex felt the change in the air when the tower bells tolled midnight. It wasn't anything physical. It was the subtle shift in the normal ebb and flow of energy. It was the song on the wind that said powerful magic was abroad.

"Zeb," the outcast knight whispered fearfully before hurrying from Rex's cell, leaving the human alone in the dim torchlight.

Rex couldn't say with any certainty how long he remained alone in the cell, but he soon felt the familiar pull, the old shiver of absolute terror down his spine that said his _master_ was calling to him.

_Rex..._

"No..._please._"

_You cannot shut me out, __**Captain**__. I have a task I require of you and you __**will**_ _obey me._

"Will I?" he spat at the empty air. "As I understand it, I've got no particular reason to keep your geas. You were never going to let her go."

_No. I was not. But you forget, Rex Kamin...I __**own you.**_ _Body and soul. Your will is __**mine**__...to __**break**_ _if I so choose. Now, will you obey my command?_

"_No,_" he snarled, glaring into the dim light.

_Then so be it._

The ancient soldier felt the king's power moving against him almost immediately, felt the strands of control descending on his mind, seeking to overthrow his reason and make him a weapon of his master. He would resist for as long as he could, but he knew he couldn't keep the king back indefinitely. His will was no match for Thrawn's. Perhaps Lira would be able to return in time.

_Only two souls remain. They are close at hand. Bring them to me. Bring me the blind warrior and the child._

"No," Rex ground out, fingers curling into fists as he resisted the faerie king's control. "Can't...don't know...which child it is."

_So __**find out**__. Kill them. Kill them and bring me the child that survives._

"No!" he cried out, convulsing violently in the interrogation chair. "NO! I won't- kill those kids! I'd _rather DIE!_"

_You can die when the task is completed. Until then, you are __**mine**__, soldier of the 501st. The time has come to bear out the rage of your brothers. Now __**kill the children!**_

"_NOOO!_"

_**Bring them to me!**_

"_NOO!_" he screamed in anguish, feeling how his mind was breaking beneath that inexorable tide of power. He wasn't going to last much longer.

_I __**will not**_ _ask again, Rex._

The captain felt his body twist almost unimaginably in the throes of his agony, the last of his will to resist slipping away from him. Eyes squeezing tightly shut, his final harrowing scream became an almost animal roar. But by the time the guards arrived to help, he had already fallen still in his bonds.

"What in the nine hells is happening back here?" one of the men demanded as he entered the cell.

Rex drew in several haggard breaths, and when he finally opened his eyes again, they were glowing red.

_Now, Captain, open the way._

"_Thrawn,_" the ancient soldier intoned, and at the mere utterance of the faerie king's name, the chains that bound him shattered, along with the barriers that protected the keep. Then the enthralled warrior threw himself at the guard.

XxX

(A/N) And with that, I leave you. Godspeed.


	4. Fourth Night

(A/N) All right, I suppose I should apologize in advance for this chapter. It's...going to be quite rough. I'll take this opportunity to remind everyone that we _are_ going to get a happy ending. Just gotta get there first.

**A Rose Upon a Thorn**

_Chapter 4: Fourth Night_

Kanan was startled awake when he felt the violent shattering of Lady Orrelios' wards. Nothing had physically happened, but he felt the horrific rending of the mystic energies no less. He sat up in bed with a sharp cry, feeling Hera come awake beside him. Unthinkingly, he reached for her in the dark, breathing heavily, mind struggling beneath the shock of the assault.

"What- what's happening?" Hera asked as she clung to him, just as affected by the breaking of the barriers as he had been.

"I don't know," he whispered back, suddenly feeling tears spilling down his face.

"We've got to- find the others," his lover ground out, slowly dragging herself up from the bed along with him.

"Right. Find Lirakal," he said, fumbling for his sword, belting it on without bothering with a shirt. "I'll see about the others."

"Right," Hera said, grabbing her daggers before heading out. Kanan wasn't far behind, heading in the opposite direction. He came across Baze and Chirrut first, the human helping his stricken husband to walk down the corridor. Clearly the elder half-Fey had been affected even worse by what had happened.

"Chirrut!" the green knight called out in worry as he rushed to meet them.

"Rex," the blind warrior struggled to explain. "He's gotten free."

"What?" Kanan pressed, uncomprehending. "How could _that_ be causing this?"

"The faerie king- has made good his geas. The captain- has become the instrument of his will, and calling down that power...is what broke the Lady's wards. He's coming here."

"Then he's after you. You and at least- _one_ of the kids, likely as not," Kanan speculated.

"Kanan!"

The green knight looked up to see Cassian, Bodhi, and Wedge hurrying toward them, all still in various sleep clothing.

"Kanan, what's going on?" Cassian was the one to speak for all of them. "Bodhi felt-"

"No time. We'll have to explain on the way. The best thing we can do here is separate their objectives. Wedge, I want you to stick with Baze and Chirrut. See if you can't find Zeb. Cassian and Bodhi, you're with me. We're gonna go get the kids," he explained before taking off in the direction of the room Ezra and Sabine shared.

"So do you feel up to explaining exactly what's happening?" Bodhi called up to him as they rushed through the passageways.

"Rex is free. He's broken Lirakal's wards and summoned the faerie king. Chirrut's pretty sure he'll be here soon."

"Then he'll be after one of those kids," Cassian said.

"Right. So we have to split them up. Make it harder for him to get to them."

The children were huddled together on Sabine's bed when the three men entered, clinging to each other. Ezra was in tears and Sabine was doing her utmost not to cry, but Kanan could see the tiny drops threatening to spill from her eyes.

"K- Kanan...what's _happening?_" she asked him, her voice faltering in terror.

"There's a bad person trying to get into the castle," he explained to her as he knelt beside the bed. "You two are going to be safer if we hide you separately. Is that all right with you?"

"D- do we h- have to?" Ezra sniffled as he looked up at the green knight.

"Yes," Sabine answered both questions at once, letting go of Ezra so that Kanan could scoop him up. "If it's safer...we have to."

"Good girl," Kanan said to her as he lifted the six-year-old in his arms. Ezra didn't struggle, but he was still clearly afraid. Reaching back down to Sabine, he took hold of her hand one last time.

"You'll be okay. Right? You won't go away forever and ever like Mom and Dad did?"

"I promise," she told him, struggling to keep a brave face as she squeezed his hand. "We'll see each other again."

Kanan hated to separate them, but he also knew they didn't have much time. So when he gently pulled Ezra up, Sabine released his hand, allowing Bodhi to hurry her out of bed as he headed from the room.

His first thought was to head down to the stables, incase escape became necessary. But that plan was quickly thwarted when he heard the screams of men being slaughtered on the landing just below them. He felt Ezra tensing in his arms, but before he could cry out, the knight muffled the sound by pressing the little boy's face into his shoulder.

_Not that way, then._

Quickly slipping down the corridor to his left, he began to double back. Perhaps it might even be better not to hide at all. Just to keep moving. Whatever the best way was, he _had_ to keep Ezra safe.

"Don't worry," he promised quietly once they were far enough away from the massacre. "I won't let anything happen to you."

XxX

When Hera finally found Lirakal, the faerie knight was alone in Zeb's room, on her knees beside his empty bed.

"My Lady, I...where's Zeb?" she asked, glancing around and finding no sign of him.

"Gone," was all the answer she had for her, fingers curling despairingly in the rumpled bedsheets.

"But...he-"

Whatever Hera had meant to say was interrupted by the sound of a voice ringing through the keep – a voice that she knew.

"LADY LIRAKAL ORRELIOS!"

"That- it can't be...Alex?"

Lirakal didn't waste time explaining. She simply stood and took Hera by the hand. The next moment, they were standing up on the battlements of the castle with the night guard, and only Hera herself knew how close the lady was to collapse with how tightly she was gripping her hand.

Looking down onto the roadway that approached their modest keep from the nearby town, a lone figure could be seen standing at the base of the castle gates – a figure whose shock of blond hair could be seen quite distinctly in the night.

"My Lady," Alexsandr Kallus called up to them, voice perfectly audible, despite the distance. "You have something your king desires."

"Thrawn is no king of mine!" the faerie knight called back to him. "He holds no power here."

"He holds enough, as those tattered remnants you call wards will now attest."

"Where is my son, Kallus!" Lirakal shouted down to him, trembling, and again, despite the distance, Hera knew she didn't imagine the little twinge of pain in her old friend's amber eyes.

"He is safe. No harm will come to him tonight. No harm need come to you or yours either if you will only surrender what we require."

"You know I cannot do that," she called down in an imperious tone. "I _cannot_ allow your _master_ to destroy the Divide. There is no telling what such an act would cause."

"_Please_, my Lady, your soldiers are being slaughtered even as we speak," Kallus pleaded with her. "Do not let them die for nothing!"

The exiled Fey squared her shoulders as she looked down at the human. "Protecting the balance upon which the two worlds rest is a cause worth dying for. You knew that once, Alex."

At this, the faerie assassin laughed bitterly, a hand briefly traveling over his eyes to conceal his expression. "Do not tell me what I know, my _Lady._ I _kept my promise!_" Kallus shouted up at them, his first real break in composure showing in the sudden wildness of his eyes. "And- even though I didn't understand everything that that meant...I _will not_ forsake my vow. I _swore_ to do whatever it took and so I shall. If you will not relinquish the last two souls, then I will _take them_ from you!"

Upon declaring this, Kallus's eyes flashed, glowing red. Then he threw back his head and howled, an animalistic hunting call that no human before him had ever made, nor ever would thereafter. And as he howled, he transformed, body shifting gracefully into a massive four-legged beast. His golden hair spread with a whip of the wind, flowing down to become a magnificent tawny pelt. No wolf Hera had ever seen in her life had ever been so large, muscles rippling with raw killing power beneath golden fur. But despite all of these changes, the eyes remained the same – human-seeming, but burning red with a great and terrible power.

The giant wolf surveyed them for a long moment, hesitating.

"Should we open fire, my Lady?" the watch captain, Leonis, asked.

"No," she said with a faint shake of her head. "There's no point."

Then, finally seeming to come to a decision, the wolf threw his head back once again and howled. Unlike the first, this sound seemed to shake the very ground, reverberating down to the marrow of Hera's bones, echoing deep inside her skull. More than her body's physical response to the sound, she could feel the vein of _power_ contained within it, all of that energy brought to bear upon the gates.

And then, just when she felt she couldn't take it anymore, when she felt like her body was simply going to shake itself apart beneath the weight of all that power, an ominous _crack_ sounded on the wind as the gates finally broke and crumbled into nothing. The wolf that was Kallus wasted no time in striding into the keep, footfalls no less weighty than the sound of his howling. Hera was barely able to collect herself enough to comprehend that Lirakal was collapsing.

She didn't need to reach out for her, though. Because in almost the same moment, Zenarab was there, moving in to catch his wife as she fell.

Having been so caught up in the confrontation with Kallus, Hera couldn't say with any certainty how long the prince had been there, but he was here now, cradling the faerie knight in his arms as he lowered her to the stoney battlements.

"Zen...I can't- I can't- protect our home anymore. I'm not- strong enough..."

"Shh. It'll be all right," the prince soothed her. "You just rest."

"He took our boy...I don't know where he is..."

"If Alexsandr says Zeb is safe, I believe him."

"Zen...he's _coming_. _Thrawn!_ He's coming here now. I can...I can sense him. He'll be here any moment."

XxX

Bodhi held tightly to Sabine's hand as Cassian led the way through the corridors. Taking off in the opposite direction from Kanan and Ezra, they had started to make their way down to the kitchens, toward a possible escape through the servants' quarters. Unfortunately, they soon found themselves pursued by the sounds of slaughter.

"_Hurry,_" Cassian urged in a quiet hiss from the end of the current passage. Bodhi paused just a moment to let Sabine climb up onto his back.

"We aren't going to make it that far," Bodhi hissed back once he'd reached him. "We'll have to find a place to hide."

"Afraid you're right," Cassian muttered, glancing both ways down the corridor before making a decision. "This way," he said, heading to the right. Bodhi hurried after.

Ultimately, the human ducked into one of the granaries. Bodhi caught sight of the large vats of grain inside the vault from the slender swathe of light let in by the open door.

"You'll be able to see when I close this, yes?" Cassian checked as they hurried inside.

"Of course."

"All right. We're in your hands."

Then he closed the door and they were plunged into darkness.

It took the healer's eyes little more than half a moment to adjust to the black. Reaching out for Cassian's hand, he led him carefully through the darkened vault, going until they could duck behind one of the farthest bins. Tucking Sabine in carefully at his side, he hunkered down to wait, not even daring to speak for fear of giving them away.

He knew they all heard it when the heavy tread of the former captain's boots began to move past, and each one of them waited with baited breath for the sound to continue on.

Only it didn't.

The door was pushed slowly open, spilling light into the dark vault once again, and as the ancient soldier's shadow fell across the stone floor, Bodhi scolded himself inwardly.

_Stupid, stupid, __**stupid!**_ _The door obviously hadn't been bolted. Should've taken the time to shift it!_

But it was too late now. As the enthralled warrior stepped into the space, he pulled the door closed behind him, and Bodhi heard the sound of the latch being slid into place, followed by the ugly, biting sound of twisting wood and metal as a dagger was buried through the door and into the latch.

_Fuck!_ Shifting the latch was one thing, but freeing a blade from it was another entirely.

They were trapped.

Bodhi didn't start moving again until Rex had moved several paces into the grain vault, keeping ahold of Sabine and pulling Cassian with him through the dark. He could see Rex clearly whenever he stole a glance through the bins, but he could only imagine what the scene must look like to his human friend – nothing but a pair of menacing red eyes moving unerringly through the dark, seeking them out.

The healer kept moving, ducking around and behind bins whenever the sound of those boots approaching too near. He caught his breath several times, terror clawing at his throat with every near miss. What could he _do?_ Sabine and Cassian's lives were completely in his hands. Maybe...if he could get them back to the front of the vault. He didn't think he could move Rex's dagger, but...perhaps he _could_ manage to shift the pins from the door's hinges and open it that way?

It was a long shot, but at this point, it was the only one they had. None of them had the power to defeat Rex as he was now.

Bodhi cried out in shock when the sound of shattering stoneware pierced his ears. Sabine screamed as their current refuge began to crumble and collapse onto them. Only the strength of his own shock and terror gave the healer the strength to push back against the splintering bin with his own power, pushing the collapsing mass back against their attacker.

He heard the man snarl in rage and frustration, but didn't take the time to see what had happened as he rushed Sabine and Cassian by the destroyed bin, moving swiftly to the other side of the vault. With the soldier's animalistic growls behind them, he led the little group back to the front of the vault. Slipping his hands free of theirs, he placed them on the door, bringing his focus to bear on the pins.

They were old, settled within the iron and beginning to rust just a little with their age. They had shifted only a little with his pull when he felt the spike of Cassian's anxiety behind him. The vault had grown quiet again.

Much too quiet.

Bodhi turned just in time to see Rex springing from the blackness at the back of the vault. Throwing a small ball of Fey light into the air, he allowed Cassian the small moment he needed to mount a defense. The human drew his twin daggers in barely enough time to catch the downward sweep of Rex's own dagger. The entranced human was covered in blood, his arms and face slick with it and his blond hair streaked with it. As he and Cassian grappled, those wild red eyes held only purpose – intent to murder the girl they both struggled so fiercely to protect.

"_Get out!_" Cassian snapped at him, barely managing to hold back the sheer power that was Rex Kamin. "Bodhi, _get her out of here!_"

It was just no good. No matter how he tried, he couldn't focus enough to make those pins move. What little focus he still had was drawn off when he heard Cassian cry out. Turning, he saw that Rex had managed to twist from the younger human's hold, leaving himself a hand free to bring his power to bear on Cassian. His friend was pinned against one of the bins, fingers scrabbling desperately against his own throat as some unseen force choked the air from his lungs.

"NO!" Bodhi cried out, going for Rex without a second thought, grabbing at his outstretched hand.

Though he was able to draw his focus off of Cassian, who slumped unconscious to the floor, he soon found himself caught in Rex's monstrous grip. Before he could make any kind of move of his own, he was thrown clear across the vault, crashing into one of the grain bins and shattering it.

Though the crash had badly injured him, he could already feel his body healing as he crawled from the rubble. All the while, he was shouting, "_Run! For the love of all that's sacred, Sabine, RUN!_"

But the little girl stood frozen in terror, pinned against the sealed door by her pursuer's inhuman red gaze. And once he reached her, he wasted not a moment. He sliced his blade across her throat, cutting it in one swift motion.

"_NOOOO!_" Bodhi screamed in anguish, seeing the blood flow down the girl's pale throat, the shocked horror in her wide eyes. She struggled briefly when Rex pinned her against the door, but it didn't take long for her struggles to fall still.

He held her like that until she died in front of him, choking on her own blood. When she didn't survive, when she failed to give him what he needed, Rex tossed her aside like so much rubbish. He then tore his other dagger from the door and ripped it from its hinges, moving on to his next quarry.

Bodhi felt tears pouring down his face as he crawled to Sabine's broken body, lying amongst the ruins of another shattered bin. Her blood stained the grain she lay upon a sickening brown color as her empty eyes stared sightlessly up at the ceiling. Faintly he remembered the gentle feel of her little hands excitedly braiding his hair, the brightness of her smile, the lovely peal of her laughter...

She was never going to laugh again.

"I'm sorry. I'm _so sorry!_" he sobbed when he reached her. "Please forgive me, dear heart." It wasn't enough. It would _never_ be enough for failing her so badly. Slowly, he reached out a trembling hand to close those lifeless eyes, to give them _some_ small measure of peace...

_No!_

The thought thrilled through him as his hand curled into a fist just above her head. He couldn't let it end this way. He _wouldn't!_ He _wouldn't_ let this be her fate!

He was no fighter. He could never have hoped to protect her in battle through strength of arms. But healing...healing was his gift. It was the fruit of the power that flowed in his veins. And he could give that gift to her.

Laying a hand on the now gaping wound in her throat, Bodhi Rook poured his own light and power into Sabine Wren's body. He gave of himself without any thought for his own safety. With an exhausted smile, he watched the wound close up and heal. With everything he was, he called back her soul, only barely fled.

_Please...please come back._

Bodhi gave until he had nothing more to give – until he collapsed on top of Sabine and his own last breath slipped between his lips.

XxX

Kanan didn't stop to sort out the tangle of emotions he was receiving from his family, from the rest of the keep. If he tried, even for a second, he knew it would all overwhelm him.

He had kept them moving after their near encounter with Rex, taking a very long route to the lower levels of the keep. But ultimately, it was not Rex he came up against.

The green knight found his path blocked by a massive wolf. If the creature's sheer size wasn't enough to indicate its unearthly nature, its glowing red eyes certainly would have been. And recalling Zeb's earlier descriptions of a tawny wolf, Kanan held Ezra a little tighter against his chest as he whispered, "Alex?"

Kanan couldn't have described it if asked, but he knew the wolf was glaring at him. He didn't know _how_, but he soon heard a human voice issuing from the animal's dripping maw.

"Alexsandr Kallus is dead. I am only a Shadow of what was," the wolf snarled, its voice barely rising above the animal growl of the outward form. "Now give me the child, Kanan Jarrus."

"No," Kanan hissed back before flinging out a hand, sending out a ring of blinding white light around himself and Ezra. The wolf howled in pain as the light lashed across its eyes, but it was only blinded temporarily. By the time Kanan was halfway down the last corridor he'd passed, the beast was in pursuit again, and the green knight knew he couldn't outrun him. Whatever Alexsandr Kallus was or was not, he was more than human. Kanan was not going to stay ahead of him for long.

So, ducking into one of the bedchambers, he quickly bolted the door behind them and carried Ezra into the room. Almost immediately, the door began to rattle behind them, shaking beneath the force of the wolf's massive bulk ramming against it.

Hurrying to the window, Kanan pushed the curtains and shutters aside, looking down to see a not too distant drop to the ground below.

"Come on," Kanan encouraged as he helped the six-year-old to clamber onto the ledge. "You can make it down, can't you?"

"I...I _think_ so," the little boy stuttered out, clearly terrified. He hadn't quite managed to make himself release his grip on Kanan's shoulder yet. "But- where do I go when I'm down?"

"Ezra, you just _run._ As fast and as far as you can. I'll be right behind y-"

Before the green knight could finish speaking, the weakening door burst inward as the stone frame that contained it shattered. Then the wolf was right there, throwing its head back and baying loud and long. At the creature's call, everything in the room that wasn't stone or flesh burst into flames. Even the curtains and shutters quickly caught, sending both half-Fey stumbling back from the window with shouts of pain, skin already lashed with several hideous burns from the insidious faerie fire. Where the window and the door had been, there were soon curtains of pure flame, leaving them trapped in the room with the wolf.

"Give me the child," the beast said again, softer this time, almost pleading.

"_Never,_" Kanan snarled in response, on his knees before the creature, keeping Ezra carefully behind him. Then, in a pleading tone of his own, he attempted to reason, "Alex...please...don't _do this._ He's only a kid. It's _me_. It's Kanan. I'm your _friend_. Your _brother!_"

"Yes...to him, you were _all_ those things. And it is in memory of that bond that I am willing to spare you now...if you will only _give me the child,_" the wolf insisted, offering up what could only be described as a pained sigh before shivering back into a human form, standing before Kanan all in black. His eyes still glowed red, but they shone with tears. They were still _Alex's_ eyes...still the man that he knew. "_Please_, Kanan...don't make me do this."

"I'm not _making_ you do anything," the green knight insisted, hands spread wide in a gesture of truce. "I'm _not_ letting you hurt Ezra. _You're_ the one who's got a choice here."

Kallus closed his eyes for a moment, swallowing painfully before looking back down at them with that same ominous red gaze. Shaking his head, he told them, "No. I have no choice. Either I obey my king's will or my bargain is forfeit."

"_What_ bargain?" Kanan pressed, still keeping the boy behind him.

Kallus sighed, the weight of _centuries_ visible in his eyes. "Seven years ago...I made a bargain with Thrawn to save Garazeb from a terrible fate. I am bound to obey him without question, to serve as his Shadow and as Rose Knight. Whether I agree with him or not, whether I condone his actions or not, I must obey. If I do not...everything I have done...everything I have _sacrificed_...will be meaningless. _Zeb's_ soul will be given instead of mine. I won't let that happen. I _won't_ let the last seven years be for nothing!" he seethed in a moment of righteous fury as he drew his sword, something in his eyes going briefly unhinged as he looked down at them, the tears finally beginning to flow. "Kanan...if it was Hera...if the two of _you_ stood where Zeb and I stand now, you would do it. Without question, without hesitation...without _mercy_."

Kanan felt something in his heart breaking as he looked up at his friend, a man who had been like a brother to him. It _pained_ him to see Alex suffering like this, but neither could he just stand aside.

"I _want_ to say you're wrong. I _want_ to say I would never do something like this...but I can't know that," he conceded with a horrible twisting in his heart. "I _can't_ know what I would do if I were in your place. I can only know what I'm going to do right now. And I am _not_ going to let you hurt Ezra."

Again, Kallus sighed in frustration. "And _I_ am not leaving here without the boy. You have my word that no harm will come to him. The girl has already died, so Ezra is the only remaining option. If I kill him now, he will not die."

The green knight felt something inside of him go cold upon hearing Kallus' words, and in Ezra's next words, he heard the echoed cry of his own heart.

"Sabine's dead?"

Kallus' only response was to lunge at them. Kanan had only a split second to react, and in the same motion he shoved Ezra back with one hand while drawing his sword to intercept Kallus' blow with the other. He barely managed to raise the crystalline blade in time, preventing his former friend's sword from slicing straight through his face.

Once he'd managed to gather himself, he forced Kallus back from him, engaging the faerie assassin in a deadly exchange of blows. They moved back and forth across the room, the fire raging all around them as their swords clashed together again and again. Even the stone seemed to burn now.

The two men went at each other over and over, lunging, striking, blocking, guarding, every move either could think of to gain the upper hand. But the tide didn't shift until Kallus suddenly found himself distracted by a marble striking the side of his face.

Eyes flicking in Ezra's direction, he saw that the boy had been carrying a slingshot, and he was preparing to take another shot. Using the small moment of distraction against him, Kanan forced him back, sending him stumbling off his feet. The green knight swooped down to try and land a decisive blow, but Kallus used his own momentum against him.

Kanan didn't see the move until it was too late, but the moment of separation had allowed Kallus to draw a short sword he'd had on him. As Kanan came down on him, Kallus swept the blade up and across his face, slicing directly across his unprotected eyes. The last sight he had before his eyes were ruined forever was that horrifying length of cold iron. He screamed in abject agony as he felt the burn of the poisoned metal slicing through his eyes.

"_KANAN!_" the sound of Ezra's horrified scream filled his ears as he collapsed, blood pouring down his face_._ He was in _agony_. He didn't know when in his life he had been in such pain. His sword was gone...lost. He couldn't _see._ _Ezra!_

"Ezra...Ezra, _run!_" he pleaded with the boy, struggling to sense him.

"I'm sorry, my friend, but you left me no choice," Kallus' tortured voice hissed in his ear. Kanan tried to make a grab for him, but the assassin pulled away too quickly.

"Ezra..._Ezra_...no..._please no!_" he cried out, struggling to crawl to them, but he couldn't center himself enough to sense the way through his own horror and panic. He heard Ezra scream as Kallus seized him.

"_Stop! You DON'T HAVE TO DO THIS!_"

Kallus didn't even acknowledge his plea. Instead he focused on Ezra, apologizing to him.

"I'm sorry. This _is_ going to hurt. But I have to be certain."

Kanan couldn't see what was happening, couldn't properly sense it. All he could feel was Ezra's terror, Kallus' jagged self-hatred, and the little boy's last scream was cut off by a single harrowing _crack_.

"_EZRA!_" he screamed in denial, collapsing to the floor like a puppet whose strings had been cut. He knew he would've been crying had he still had functioning eyes. He could still sense Ezra, but...

"Don't worry. He'll be all right," he heard Kallus whisper after a time, the words plain to him even through the roar of the fire. "The break will heal."

"_Monster_," he snarled, incensed, the word like a shard of broken glass in his throat as his fingers scrabbled uncontrollably at the charred stone floor. "He's- just a _child!_ You aren't the person we knew anymore! You're just a _monster!_"

His accusation was followed by a long stretch of silence, the room filled only with the sounds of the blaze that consumed it. The moment was so long, Kanan almost began to think the assassin had gone. But when he did speak again, the green knight could hear how he must have been sobbing.

"You think you tell me something I don't know?" the human demanded in a strangled voice. "I _know_ what I am, Kanan Jarrus, knight of Orrelios. I _know_ what I've done. But _I_ don't matter anymore. Were it not me, _Zeb_ would be standing here in my place. I stand here to protect the one I love, because every lash my soul bears is a scar that _his_ does not. Everything I'd ever wanted from my life, I found in him, and that love is an altar I will _gladly_ sacrifice my soul upon. It is worth every last _ounce_ of my own sorrow and misery. I will hate myself until I die, but I will _never_ regret what I have done."

Then he really was gone, and Kanan was alone, alone in the endless dark with the heat of the fire burning itself out all around him.

"Ezra..._Ezra_..." he cried out over and over again, awareness slipping away a little more every moment. He cried the name until he no longer could, falling into the deeper darkness of unconsciousness.

XxX

Baze couldn't remember a time when he hadn't been just one step behind Chirrut.

Well, it wasn't so much that he couldn't physically _remember_ that time, as it was that that time was just not important. He had literally walked into the eyeless seer after some fight or other, had been flat out told he was early, and everything before that moment had ceased to mean anything.

The road since had been an interesting one, to say the least. Taking two young boys under their wing, one half-Fey and one human, falling in with a prince's son and his band of knights – throughout it all, the man he had married had seemed nothing but supremely unconcerned about the world around him, often amused by it, but now Chirrut was not leading the way through that world.

Now he was leaning heavily against Baze, and the former mercenary found he wasn't quite sure how to walk in that world anymore.

He'd been awakened by the sound of his husband's cry and had been listening to his explanations of what he was sensing in short bursts as they moved through the castle, searching for the others. He hadn't had much to explain upon filling Wedge in, just that they needed to find Lady Orrelios and the others, and that was accomplished when they met up with Hera and Prince Orrelios in the main courtyard. The prince was carrying his wife in his arms, though she was clearly already starting to protest being carried, despite having been badly affected by the breaking of her wards.

"My Prince! My Lady!" Wedge called out to them.

"Where's Kanan?" Hera pressed. "Did he find you? Where are the others?"

"They went to get Sabine and Ezra. Kanan wanted to split them up to protect them. Make them harder targets," the young knight answered.

"They...did not succeed," Chirrut said softly, mournfully, with his typical infuriating finality.

Hera turned to the blind warrior with a look of devastation in her eyes. "What-"

But before she could truly begin to question him, a wind swept into the courtyard through the destroyed gates – a wind that even the humans among them could identify as uncanny. Baze's eyes darted about the open space, seeking a threat and finding none. But still, he felt that one was nearby.

"The king of the moonlit realm rises on the wind," his husband said. "Swift and deadly as the ice in his veins."

"So...my Lady Orrelios," an oddly soft, disembodied voice began to speak on that wind. "It is come to this."

"Show yourself!" the Fey knight snarled, finally succeeding in convincing her husband to let her down. "I'll not have your games, _Thrawn._"

And just like that, the darkness in the corners of the courtyard raced to the center of the space, swiftly coalescing into a tall figure whose eyes glowed a menacing red. The skin that formed from that darkness was a deep blue, covering what looked to be a largely slender being with only mild muscle definition. But Baze was not fooled by the outward appearance. Chirrut had taught him to see with more than just his eyes.

This one was unspeakably powerful.

"How you sleep at night, I will never understand," Lady Orrelios declared, giving the outward appearance of strength and imperiousness, though every last one of them knew just how weak she was. "That you could believe these _atrocities_ are in _any_ way justified-"

"You would justify much to yourself, Lirakal, were you to behold your husband lying dead at your feet," the faerie monarch informed her in a cool tone, though his narrowed eyes blazed as he surveyed her. "I merely possess the good fortune of mental clarity. My own experiences led me to see how our two peoples are ultimately better off separated from one another. I tried to destroy the humans once long ago, but they have earned something akin to compassion from me in the ensuing centuries. After all, what are they compared to us but children? One cannot fault children their lack of understanding."

"But one _can_ apparently _murder_ them," Lady Orrelios countered.

"Cannot fault them, I said. This does not preclude _punishment_. But such extremes will hardly be necessary once the two realms are safely severed from one another."

"And what makes you so certain that's what will happen if you seal the Divide?"

"One can never be one hundred percent certain of anything, Lady Knight, but my research has led me to the conclusion that this may be done without incident."

"And if it cannot?" the knight continued to press. The high king of Faerie eyed her warily for what seemed like a long while before answering.

"Then perhaps such an end...is as it should be. It seems we can do nothing but harm each other as we are now. That may no longer be. So, Lira, I will have what I came for now," he said, gaze flicking briefly from his former knight over to Baze and Chirrut. The former mercenary growled low in his throat, warning the faerie that he, at least, had no intention of giving in without a fight. The only response he received was a small look of amusement from the king.

"If you want _any_ of my people, you will have to go through me, my _Lord_," Lirakal hissed in challenge, drawing a sword Baze had never seen from thin air.

"Li," her husband started in worry.

"Oh, I already _have_, dear lady, but if you insist on defiance, I will have nothing less from you than your proper form."

With that, the faerie king held a hand out before him, and they all felt the _slice_ of it through the air as he brought just a little of that power to bear on Lirakal Orrelios' human form.

"_LI!_" Zen cried in alarm, but there was nothing he could do. Nothing _any_ of them could do.

For a moment, the fallen knight was held suspended in the air. But then her body seemed to just _break,_ twisting into a new form as it grew. Her dark skin lightened, ultimately becoming purple before growing fur. Her eyes became impossibly round within her head, the irises spreading until they encompassed the entirety of her eyes. Fangs and claws sprouted where none had been before. Baze could hear gasps and cries from the various soldiers and servants scattered throughout the courtyard. Some were sounds merely of shock, others were amazement, but more still were horror.

Despite how much _more_ of her there now was, despite how much more powerful she appeared, once the transformation was complete, Lirakal Orrelios was on her knees before the faerie king, stripped of her outward veneer of strength. Even so, she did not collapse outright. She remained conscious, with her sword still gripped in her hand.

"Now, my Lady Orrelios," the faerie king said, drawing his own sword from thin air just as she had, but unlike her blade, crystalline with only a thin sheen of cold iron at its tip, his weapon was pure cold iron, "do you still insist that I _go through you?_"

"I do," she declared, a look of hard resolve in her utterly inhuman eyes.

"Then so be it."

With that, Thrawn was in motion, sweeping across the courtyard to the exiled knight. Just as he was bringing his sword down upon her, she raised her own in barely enough time to block the downward strike. For several moments, they struggled in the deadlock.

"So," Lirakal hissed up at her former monarch, disdain clear in her voice despite her obvious exhaustion, "even _you_ have taken to using a full iron blade now? _Even you_ would fall so far as to use this poison against your own people?"

"I have had little choice in the matter, Lady, as you yourself prove by insisting upon this defiance," he bit out, pressing down into the lock of their blades.

With a cry of immense effort, Lirakal channeled power through her blade, the crystalline weapon flashing yellow for an instant as Thrawn was thrown back. As the knight rose to her feet, she visibly gathered what little strength she still had to launch herself at him. And of course he managed to regain his guard before she could land a blow. For several minutes, they traded deadly strikes back and forth, the very stones beneath their feet beginning to quake with the enormity of their power. For a brief moment, the flagging faerie knight almost seemed to hold her own.

But then the faerie king slipped in a strike beneath an over-wide sweep of her blade, the poisonous metal of his own sword plunging deep into her shoulder.

"_LIRAKAL!_" Zenarab screamed in horror as his wife cried out in agony. Thrawn only smiled faintly, driving the blade in that much deeper, holding her in place.

"So...do you need me to end this?" he asked slowly. The faint sparks of magic that still lingered in the knight's blade flickered out as she struggled to maintain her grip on her weapon.

"I...I will..._never_...surrender to you..._Thrawn_," she snarled defiantly, her breath catching in her throat several times before she spat a mouthful of blood in his face.

"As you will, Lady Knight," he said, voice stone cold as he withdrew his blade from her body, the iron blade sliding free as easily as a knife from butter. But before he could drive the sword forward once more and end her life, a lone voice called out.

"Stop!"

Baze didn't know when Chirrut had slipped from his grip, but there he was, moving slowly but steadily toward the faerie king, leaning heavily on his staff all the while.

"Chirrut!" he shouted, trying to go after him, but immediately finding himself held back by Hera.

"Stop this. I am the one you want, and I will go with you. I will make no trouble...so long as you spare their lives."

"Their lives shall be spared...so long as they cause me no trouble," Thrawn returned, gazing steadily at Chirrut with his blade held just above Lirakal's heart.

"They will cause you no trouble on these grounds, Majesty," the blind warrior offered up in kind.

Thrawn gave a small laugh at Chirrut's phrasing before finally withdrawing his sword, sending it back to whatever ether it had come from. "Then upon these grounds your companions need have no fear of me, Master Imwe. Now come," he said softly, holding out a polite hand for the half-Fey, which Chirrut took.

"No..._don't_," Baze couldn't stop himself from pleading at the last. "Doing this won't make _anything better,_ Chirrut."

"No. It will not," his husband conceded as he allowed Thrawn to pull him in close. "But something else may yet."

Whatever Baze might've said was interrupted by the arrival of two more people in the courtyard. The first was Rex, hands bloody and eyes glowing red, his expression blank. The next was a man Baze assumed was Alexsandr Kallus, carrying an unnaturally still Ezra in his arms, and the reason for that became apparent when the former mercenary saw the awkward angle the boy's neck lay at.

"Ezra!" Hera cried out, and Baze could feel how she resisted the urge to run to them.

"H- Hera," the injured little boy gurgled out. "K- K- _Kanan..._"

"Alex?" the knight whispered in shocked denial as she looked up at him. "What did you _do?_"

"He's not dead, Hera," the man answered in a bitter, choked voice. "I did what I could."

"Of course," the half-Fey knight snarled, silent tears beginning to trickle down her face. "You're a real hero."

Kallus couldn't seem to bring himself to look at her any longer. Turning away from them, the assassin moved toward his master. On his way past Lirakal, he laid a hand briefly on her shoulder.

"So this is the child we have sought," the faerie king said quietly, reaching out a hand to touch Ezra's loose curls.

"It is," Kallus responded stiffly. "He survived his neck breaking after take a blow from the hilt of my short sword."

"S- Sabine?" Wedge's voice suddenly rose above the others, despite how quietly he whispered the name. "You- killed that little girl?"

Thrawn eyed the young knight impassively for a moment before some sort of thought seemed to connect behind those glowing red eyes. "So _you're_ the one. Interesting. _Most_ interesting."

"What...what do you-"

"Here. Give him to me," Chirrut interrupted when Ezra began to struggle sluggishly in Kallus' hold. With the king's approval, the assassin handed the boy over, so that Chirrut held both Ezra and his staff in one hand while Thrawn kept a tight grip on the other.

"You will pardon our leaving, I'm sure, but there is much to be done," the faerie king said to Zenarab, but then he turned his focus to Rex. "As for you, _Captain_, your term has been fulfilled. Your usefulness has ended."

As he spoke, he drew a sharp line through the air before the ancient soldier's eyes. Rex blinked rapidly as his eyes shifted back to normal. He drew several stuttered breaths, weaving on his feet before collapsing to his knees. Then, leaving the human to his fate, Thrawn vanished back into the blackness he'd first coalesced from, taking Kallus, Ezra, and Chirrut with him.

Rex, meanwhile, was left to awaken to the horror of what he'd done. As he looked down at his bloodstained hands, understanding slowly dawning in his eyes, those hands began to tremble. Then he turned his shattered face to the heavens and _screamed_ – a sound of such abject anguish and despair, it sent a chill down each of their spines.

Then, in a sudden and desperate move, Rex was seizing a dagger, a small blade of cold iron he must have taken from one of the guards he'd killed. Sweeping the dagger overhead, he began the downward strike to pierce his own heart with the blade, but found himself blocked.

A large purple hand was wrapped around the little blade, preventing it from entering his heart. Lady Orrelios had crawled to him and wrapped her arms around him to save his life at the last possible moment.

"_Don't!_" the faerie knight snarled, drained but desperate. "Don't- hurt anyone else with that blade, Rex. Not even yourself."

Then she fell unconscious, still cleaving tightly to him, preventing him from doing any further harm.

XxX

Zeb had never ceased his struggles against the vines of roses holding him captive, and he barely took the time to notice when every single rose in the clearing died, setting him free. He didn't _want_ to think about what it could possibly mean.

He just ran.

He didn't mark the time it took him to reach the keep. He just kept running, a wind speeding his feet until he came at last to the shattered gates of his home.

"_No_," he whispered in horror. He had to remind himself to breathe as he walked through the once proud archway.

The castle looked as though it had been taken by an invading army. Dead soldiers and half-Fey refugees lay scattered about the place while those still living helped move the injured to the infirmaries. It was a sad, sorry state of affairs, and Zeb could hardly bring himself to believe that his Alex had had a hand in it.

_Alex...__**why?**_

"Zeb!" a familiar voice suddenly came to him from the end of the corridor he was moving through. Turning around in a daze, he found himself seized in Hera's bruising grip as she half-crashed into him, hugging him tightly.

"Hera..." he started in muted confusion, slowly wrapping his own arms around his friend. "I...what-"

"We didn't know where you were," she cried, her face buried in his chest.

"I'm sorry...I didn't- Alex trapped me. It's...what _happened?_" he finally made himself ask, holding her tightly as he rubbed a soothing hand up and down her back.

"He- took Chirrut and Ezra...the faerie king..._Thrawn_."

"Thrawn?" Zeb repeated in a heavy voice, hearing the name for the first time. That it had been revealed to them this night...that she could use it at all meant...

"He set Rex free, took control of him, and Rex used that connection to break your mother's wards. He went after the children. I- so many are dead-"

"The..._Sabine._ Hera, what happened to Sabine?" Zeb demanded, shaking Hera as he looked down at her. Something deep within him told him he didn't _want_ to know but, at the same time, he couldn't just not ask. That bright-eyed, teal-haired little girl he had pulled alive from Ventress' nightmare...

But Hera could only shake her head, her eyes bright with the threat of tears, and Zeb felt his heart break a little at the sight. "Zeb, I- I can't find Kanan."

"Hera!" Wedge's voice interrupted the conversation, drawing them both to look up to see the younger knight approaching from the opposite end of the corridor. "We found him."

Wedge quickly led them to a section of the castle that had been badly damaged by faerie fire. In one of the guest chambers, three men were struggling to remove debris from a section of wall that had collapsed. And emerging from that pile of collapsed stone and masonry was the battered body of Kanan Jarrus. The burns and wounds that littered his body were already beginning to heal, but his face was still covered in blood from an injury Zeb couldn't quite place.

"_Kanan!_" Hera cried out as she dropped to her knees at the green knight's side, gathering him in her arms as he struggled back to consciousness.

"Ezra," he mumbled, uncomprehending, then louder. "Ezra!"

Over and over again, he cried out, hands reaching, fingers clawing at empty air, and when his eyelids finally opened, Zeb saw the full extent of the damage to his friend.

His crystal blue eyes had been sliced out altogether. The blood and gore still dribbling down his face was what remained of them. And there was no sign of healing. This had been done with cold iron. It would _never_ heal.

"_Ezra!_" he cried out, struggling violently while Hera fought to hold him still, tears pouring silently down her face all the while. "_EZRA!_"

_What a nightmare,_ Zeb thought, heart breaking afresh at the sight of his two dearest friends suffering. _And __**I**_ _led it here._

XxX

Once they had managed to calm Kanan enough to move him, the four knights made their way to Zeb's parents' private chamber, where Lirakal was laid out on their bed, her wounds already tended to. Part of Zeb wondered if maybe his mother had worried her altered appearance might shock him but, having had a taste of his own true form with Alex, seeing his mother like this, purple fur and all, simply felt right.

Any conversation regarding her transformation, however, was forestalled almost immediately, because Cassian and Baze arrived in the room only a few moments behind them, both looking like they'd been through hell since last he'd seen them. Worse still was what they carried with them. Cassian carried Sabine's small, broken body in his arms, her front soaked with blood, and his face streaked with grime and the drying tracks of tears. And Baze...Baze was carrying-

"Bodhi!" Wedge cried out in shock. There wasn't a mark on his body but, even so, he was just as unmoving as the little girl he'd so loved...just as unmistakably lifeless. But Lirakal's next words cast doubt on what could be seen with the eyes.

"They're not dead," the faerie knight said softly, eyes barely open as she looked over at them.

Cassian looked nothing so much as insulted at this. Moving forward, he laid Sabine on the bed beside the exiled knight.

"Neither of them is breathing. You will forgive me if I do not take your word for it, my _Lady_," he spat out.

"No...they are not...because they are deep asleep," she explained. "Tell me...does the girl have a wound in her neck?"

"Well, of course she- I..._no_," Cassian whispered in amazement when he actually took a moment to look, and when Zeb's gaze followed his, it was to find that what _would_ have been the gaping injury that ended Sabine's life was actually nothing more than a scar – a slightly gnarled line of tissue that looked to be months healed instead of only hours inflicted.

"Bodhi must have used his power to heal her. But...gifted a healer as he is, he is still no faerie. He could not...bring her all the way back. Merely anchor her soul to her body, and even that took everything he had. It has...left him in a similar state...soul barely attached to body."

"Then...what can we _do?_" Hera pressed, still standing beside Kanan as a medic did what she could for his eyes. "Is there anything we can do to actually bring them back?"

His mother sighed, reaching over a large, four-fingered hand to rest on Sabine's much smaller head. "Taking them through the Divide would help."

"You mean...go to Faerie?" Zeb asked, not wanting to consider how he felt about that.

"Just so. There is...a young noble there...a brilliant healer. She could help them."

"Apologies, Lady Orrelios, but you're speaking of Lady Arsane?" a now painfully familiar voice spoke up.

Zeb looked over to see Rex standing by the open window, looking out on the waning hours of night. He was still covered in dried blood and while his expression was mostly hard, the look in his eyes was...lost.

"I am," the faerie knight said, raising her head just a little to look in the human's direction, at which point he pulled himself to look back at her. "Why?"

"You'll recall that Lady Kryze vowed to go to the grave childless after...General Kenobi's execution."

"Yes."

"Well...that happened not long ago. Thrawn had Satine executed for treason when she attempted to step in on his killing of the half-Fey. Rule of House Mandalore didn't pass to her sister as it should have."

"Oh, no," his mother whispered, trying once to sit up before his father stopped her. "Not- not that _child_."

"I'm afraid so. Lady Zelina Arsane rules House Mandalore now. Fairly certain the king thought he could control her, but...he's had a time of it if nothing else," the ancient soldier said with a bitter but amused smile. "Zelina still holds with Satine's ideals; it's just...difficult. She'll help. The trouble'll be in actually _getting_ to her."

"Then that's where _you_ come in."

Rex winced at her words. "All- due respect, Lady, but why am I even still here? You should put an axe to me for what I've done."

"I know you feel responsible, Rex, but what happened was not your doing. The deaths of all those men...what happened to Sabine...all of that is on Thrawn. You didn't choose any of this. You have only ever- wanted to free Ahsoka. So...if you still want that, if you want to assist in completing her work, and to atone...then that atonement will be in guiding my son and his companions through Faerie."

"Because that's the only way we're gonna get Chirrut and Ezra back," Zeb said slowly. Alex, too, but he was no longer certain what he should or shouldn't be feeling in that regard.

"Yes. I have little doubt they will be held in Thrawn's stronghold. Zelina should be able to help you reach it once you get to her. And at that, we can only _hope_ you can reach them before Thrawn locates the seventh soul. Stopping him...is the only way to prevent this calamity from occurring."

"And you, Mum?" Zeb asked her with more than a touch of worry. "You're not coming with us? Seems to me like you could do with a healer yourself."

Again, his mother sighed, her eyes closing briefly as she continued. "I cannot help you. While Thrawn is king, I am barred from the moonlit realm. It isn't a matter of choosing to defy my exile. I simply...cannot cross the Divide. My way would be barred."

"But..." he started slowly, reaching a hand out to her bandaged shoulder.

"I will be fine, Garazeb. This isn't as bad as it appears," she said with a little shrug. "Alex actually managed a little healing before they left. This will heal like any other human injury. The only help I can offer to you is this."

As she spoke, she held her good arm up. Zeb felt the power emanate from her as a crystal blade appeared in her hand. It looked mostly the same as his own weapon except the tip of the blade had been forged with a sheen of cold iron over it. Whirling the blade easily above her, she turned the weapon so that she was offering the hilt to him. He hesitated only a moment before taking his mother's sword in hand, giving it an experimental swing.

"Lighter than I would've thought."

"It is power you have not known. Faerie itself is power you have not known, my son. You will have to keep guard of yourself at all times...or you will risk losing who you are...the part of you that is human. _Do not_ lose it," she urged him, reaching her hand back up to lay it over his, gripping that now much smaller hand in her own larger one.

"And how would- those of us who are _only_ human...fare beyond the Divide?" Cassian asked.

Lirakal smiled faintly as she looked back at him. "I don't suppose there's any sense in asking you and Baze to stay behind, little upstart?"

"No sense at all," Baze put in gruffly. "They took my husband. I am getting him back."

"Then you must carry food and water with you."

"The stories are true then?" Cassian pressed in only mild amazement. "We would not be able to return if we consumed Fey food?"

"It isn't...so much that you would be _unable_ to return. You would. But the you that _did_ return would no longer be the same. You would be much like Wedge...mind broken for want of the moon's light when she is out of sight."

"And me- my Lady?" Wedge asked nervously. "I wouldn't have to worry about that?"

Lirakal shook her head. "No. In fact, I think you would find yourself more awake in Faerie than you have been this last year. But what that means is up to you."

"Zeb, there is- one other weapon that might help you," his father said, going to a cabinet at the far side of the chamber. Unlocking it, he opened the doors to reveal a small array of swords and daggers, and from among them he lifted a small dagger. It was fairly plain to the eyes, but Zeb could sense, even from across the room, that it was the only blade composed of cold iron in the collection. Wrapping the weapon's hilt carefully in a handkerchief, the prince brought it to Zeb.

"Thirty years ago...I wielded this dagger against Thrawn when I helped your mother bring you out of Faerie. I did what damage I could. Not much, but the point is that the iron was impregnated with his blood. The blade hasn't dulled since then. I couldn't do much damage with it, but perhaps in the hands of a half-Fey, more might be managed," he said as he passed the weapon to him.

Being careful not to touch any of the exposed iron on the hilt, Zeb examined it a moment before attaching the sheathed dagger to his belt. It really wasn't much to look at, but if it could help, even a little bit, he was willing to try.

"We can't wait long," Kanan was speaking now, eyes bandaged, leaning against Hera as he got back to his feet. "There's no telling how much time we'll have."

"Kanan-" Hera started to protest.

"It _doesn't matter_," he interrupted sharply before she could finish. "Chirrut could do it all without eyes. I'll figure it out, too. But I am getting Ezra _back_. If there was ever a time we needed to keep together, it's now. No one's staying behind on this."

"He's right," Zeb conceded as he turned back to his two oldest friends. Despite the severity of his injuries, he could see the desperate fire that still burned within the green knight. "The only way we're getting our family back is together. So that's how we're goin' this. It's gonna take every one of us to make it through."

Hera took in a heavy breath, but she ultimately nodded her agreement.

"You're right. You're both right. I'll have us ready to travel by first light."

XxX

(A/N) Truly, I...I'm not sure if this chapter is made better or worse by the fact that I wrote it a good while before any of the Siege of Mandalore premiered. Well, here's to hoping I don't keep you all in suspense for too long.


End file.
